compilation DPSM

by jaceyrose18

Adtong nahigugma ko.. I learn everything..Magpa ngit2.. moikyas sa gabie bahalag kasab an pero sa dihang nasakitan nako, sakto jud sila.. "dele mao ang akong gibati nga gugma.."

1. SPIDEYPOOL

SPIDEYPOOL

chapter 1

Peter honestly had no idea how he kept getting into these situations. Well... That was a lie. He would blame his "Parker luck" up and down and feign innocence but the reality hit him like a goddamn bullet narrowly missing his right femur as it tore through the side of his leg. He was getting sloppy. Really, he'd always been sloppy (as was to be expected with his exactly zero years of training), but lately he was getting dangerously sloppy. A certain level of gained confidence leant toward an over-optimistic attitude, which then lead him to take on far too much in his life under the impression that he could handle it now. In other words, he got cocky and bit off more than he could chew. Too many college courses, a job, an internship, friends and family were weighing down on him. That was exhausting on its own.

Add in super-heroing junk, and it was a complete nightmare.

Even with the exhaustion, he couldn't believe he'd actually been careless enough to let a bullet hit him. But to be fair, he was sporting a probably broken rib to boot. A small part of him just wanted to curl up in a little ball and wish it over. Fights could be horrifyingly enjoyable when he was kicking ass. The effects of the adrenaline rush alone were hard to argue with. He was just so tired now, though, and everything hurt. His brain was a constant flood of warnings about the movement around him, and there were just so many people to fight off. The anxiety kept pooling, but it wasn't just the basic instincts. He was also terrified to just end it because it meant using his full strength. That could kill someone. That was bad.

It seemed to keep going forever. Seconds dragged on for eternity. He could hear his panting breaths starting to come with a rattling in his chest. Oh, that was a bad sign.

The panic was really starting to set in with a vague tingling sensation at the top of his scalp—like his spidey sense, but completely opposite in that he was sliding into dissociation.

But, instead of a panic attack, it was followed with a massive thud. His vision blacked out and he slumped over, collapsing on the concrete. It would occur to him much later that someone must have really swung at his head with something heavy and with an inhuman amount of force to knock him out that quickly.

Or maybe he was already incredibly concussed.

chapter 2

Peter fell in and out of consciousness for a while. Mostly he got sounds. Strangely the thing that brought him around the first time was the sudden lack of being beat up on. In the absence of physical contact, he could hear screaming. He took note of the hard ground beneath him—the rough texture he could feel through the thin mask covering his skin. It was cold, and that was good. His injuries felt hot.

Then he couldn't feel it at all.

He heard a rough voice. It was difficult to focus on the syllables. They sounded foreign even though they weren't. Try as he might, comprehension kept slipping through his grasp; it was liquid and flowing in a warm stream from his head. Instead, he listened to the cadence. It was hardly melodic, all raspy and rough with jarring inflections that kept him from drifting off every time he started. But even that started to develop a pattern that his tired mind got used to. The voice like tires on gravel began to become relaxing, soothing, flowing...

And the world went silent again.

Next he felt pain. He fell suddenly on something soft, but he hurt enough that it felt like concrete. The texture was at least smooth and comfortable. So smooth. He could hear the gravel voice again. It lifted as though asking a question. He groaned in response. It was brighter, wherever he was. He could see it from behind his eyelids. He tried to peel open his eyes to see what was happening, but they felt like lead. It was a struggle, but he got a blurry flash of colors as he blinked a few times. He could feel hot, liquid trails drip from the corners of his eyes.

More pain followed. He could feel hands manipulating him. Something caused a burning sensation on his leg and then over a few other lacerations. Disinfectant, he realized belatedly. That must be it.

The light went out and suddenly everything was black, empty, and without temperature.

chapter 3

When Peter next woke, he groaned loudly at the sudden influx of pain. He kept his eyes closed, not truly wanting to be awake. He was in bed. Did he need to be up now? Did he have plans? He tried to rake through his mind for the memory of what today was. Then it all came flooding back. He had followed a scream and jumped into action, like with every other patrol. Turned out it was an ambush from a local gang that was none too happy about his interferance with their operations over the years. He'd been knocked out. And then...

And then...

His eyes snapped open, and he sat up with a start. That was a mistake because it made every injury scream at once. He got dizzy. Then he got nauseous. It took a few minutes to convince his stomach not to empty its contents all over his lap. When his head finally cleared of buzzing, he was able to regain his train of thought. Namely, the question of where in the hell he was.

After blinking a few times, his vision focused, and he tried to take in his environment. He was in a small room that barely fit a bed, a chair, and a small dresser that doubled as a bed-side table. He could tell the latter use was intended by the full glass of water and couple of pills sitting near him.

It wasn't until he caught site of the water that he realized how dry his throat was. Without a second thought, he grabbed the glass and downed it in huge gulps. Some fell down his chin and wet his shirt, but it was a necessary sacrifice to quench his thirst. He grabbed the wet fabric tightly in his fist as thought it would somehow dry it faster.

It took a moment for it to register that when he passed out, he had been in his Spider-Man garb. He quickly let go of the shirt to feel for any sign of his mask on his face, but all he found was bare skin and hair.

Ah, hell.

He put the glass back and stared dubiously at the pills. They looked like ibuprofen, but he couldn't be sure. It was better not to take strange pills, so he didn't.

He went back to taking stock of what was around him.

There were two doors. One was open to show off a closet filled with boxes and a pile of laundry of indiscriminate cleanliness. The other was closed, but light flooded in from the gaps. Aside from that, there was a small window. He wasn't sure if he'd be able to fit through the narrow thing to be honest, but it didn't matter either way because there were bars.

Well, if that wasn't just the most inconvenient fire hazard, he thought bitterly.

Carefully, he pulled back the covers and tried to get himself on his feet. He couldn't help the groans of pain as he moved, but he was careful not to exasperate any of his injuries. Using the wall for balance, he limped over to the door. It was only a few steps, but it took frustratingly long to get there.

The door also took frustratingly long to open, but that was because the knob seemed to be jammed and took a considerable amount of effort to open—he was kind of afraid of breaking it. Finally, it swung open with a loud creak, opening up to a single, fairly small room with a kitchen area on one side and a living room area on the other, divvied up by the placement of the couch. It was messy but well kept with only a little actual damage here and there.

None of these things Peter noticed because with the sound of the opening the door, his host, who appeared to have been napping on the couch, suddenly jumped onto his feet the way most people would react to being woken by a scream or a gunshot. The immediate action put Peter in defensive mode, meaning that he actually climbed halfway up the wall backwards before he was even really able to take in who his "host" was.

"Woah, Jesus, Spidey," The man grumbled in his voice so normally rough that it was hard to tell whether it sounded sleep-logged or not. "Ya almost gave me a heart attack there."

He suddenly frowned in a way that was somehow obvious through his red and black mask. His gloved hands moved to his hips, in a kind of scolding mother pose. "You climb right back down, mister, or you'll ruin my stitching."
Peter had no idea what he meant by that, and in the contrary, kept climbing until he was firmly on the ceiling. In the process, something tore on his leg. He could feel its wetness when the fabric of the sweatpants he was wearing stuck to it. His brain was running a thousand miles a minute. His mask was off. He was injured. He was in an apartment with Deadpool.

Deadpool.

The person he probably trusted the least, even behind half the villains he fought. At least with them, he knew what their game was.

"Where's my mask?" he demanded, louder than he expected. His breaths were beginning to come harder and faster, and he could feel the heavy beats of his heart agains his ribcage.

Deadpool winced, putting his hands up in a way meant to pacify. It didn't work in the slightest, of course. "Now, Spidey. Spider-man. Spides. I really tried to avoid touching it. I mean it. I respect the whole mask thing. It's your thing. I get it. You like your privacy. But you got knocked around the head pretty bad. Could feel blood through it, you know? I couldn't just let that go cause head injuries are the worst. Hurt like a bitch. Bleed like crazy. Can be pretty hard to come back from. So you know, I-"

"You took off my mask!" Peter shouted, feeling betrayed, more so by the universe than anything else. After all, he didn't exactly have positive expectations from Deadpool of all people, and betrayal required a certain amount of expectation.

But now that the man knew what he looked like, it'd be easy for someone like him to track down his personal information. He'd probably get a high price for it, too.

Peter couldn't list all the people on one hand that would pay a pretty penny for his identity to get revenge.

Oh, god, oh, god, oh, god.

His breaths came in heavy puffs and the tingling sensation in his head came back. Physical panic made the dull ache from his head injuries hurt more somehow. The room started to distort and blur, feeling distant and strange.

chapter 4

Deadpool moved very slowly, walking over to get underneath Peter. "Hey, Spidey. What does a spider do when he gets angry? He goes up the wall!"

Peter narrowed his eyes. Somehow that stupid joke managed to pull him back into his body. He used the opportunity to ground himself, concentrating more on the feeling of ceiling beneath his hands and feet rather than the specifics of the situation.

Meanwhile, Deadpool told more terrible spider jokes. Mostly they were just really terrible "web" or "spin" puns. Low hanging fruit at best. When Peter finally was able to get his breathing evened out, he told him as much. "You're not funny."

"Yeah, that's what my dear old mom said when I pointed out the irony of calling me a 'son of a bitch,'" the man continued in what was probably an attempt at a genial tone. He seemed to think for a couple seconds before blurting out excitedly, "Oh, hey, I got one I bet you never heard before! What do you get when you cross a squirrel with a spider?"

"What?"

"A bug that will run up your leg and eat your nuts!"

Peter smacked a hand against his grinning face. Despite himself, the joke got a surprised laugh out of him. He kept the hand over his face even as the smile dissapated.

"You good now, Spidey?"

"Define good."

"Do you mind skittering down now, buddy?"

Peter sighed heavily. There was a slight pain in his chest but nothing too terrible. He debated the pros and cons of just crawling over to the nearest window and jumping out, but from what he could tell, the other two windows also had bars. Where the hell was this apartment?

"First of all," he started, sounding a hefty mix of tired and angry. "I'm not your buddy. What am I doing here, Deadpool? What's your game? Are you connected to the people I was fighting? Did they hire you?"

Deadpool lifted his hands in the defensive position for a second time, and Peter jumped slightly at the sudden movement. "Woah, woah, woah there. I just saw you get smacked pretty hard in the head when I was out on a surveillance gig. I tend to stay away from that particular crowd. You know, they're pretty anti-mutant."

"You're not a mutant."

That earned him a pout. "Says you."

Peter rolled his eyes and put his hand back on the wall behind him. The position wasn't doing his injured ribs any favor. "What am I doing here, then?"

"You're making your injuries worse like a complete dumb-ass is what you're doing." There was a frustrated bite in his voice that naturally sounded dangerous, regardless whether it actually was or wasn't. He let out a heavy sigh and carefully backed away a little. "Spidey, I get you don't trust me. That's fine, but I can tell you're bleeding again, and it can't be comfortable up there. One way or another you're gonna have to come down. Please don't make me get a broom. It'd be embarrassing for the both of us."

chapter 5

It took another five minutes of gentle coaxing (read: obnoxious jokes and vague broom threats) before Peter finally got too sore to keep holding his weight up in that weird angle and crawled back down the wall. Deadpoool seemed to soften, as if he felt he won Peter over somehow, which only caused Peter to tense up more.

He didn't like the mercenary thinking he trusted him in any capacity. If he were in better shape, he'd retaliate, but as it stood, there was no way Deadpool wouldn't wipe the floor with him in a fight. Sure, he claimed to be concerned with Peter's injuries, but how long would that last if Peter pushed the envelope too far? It was best to take the "care" as it came until he was well enough to fight his way out if necessary.

He struck the thought of the massive breech of privacy with the removal of his mask from his mind for the moment, deciding it was best to open that can of worms when he was prepared to deal with what came out.

"C'mon, kid, let's go check out the new hole you tore yourself."

It was legitimately impossible to roll his eyes any harder than he did at that sentence. Everything about it was bad, and he very much resented being called a kid. He was too old for that patronizing bullshit; could rent a car all by himself and everything. What he managed to get out, though, was a petulant "I'm not a kid."

Oh, yeah, great going Pete. That's super convincing.

Deadpool, for his part, didn't react. He just ushered Peter into the bathroom.

It was a really freaking nice bathroom.

The rest of the apartment was cramped and horrible in that NYC way that was almost impossible to avoid in the city unless you really raked in the big bucks. A mercenary of Deadpool's reputation probably should be, but it wasn't surprising he'd be in a shit apartment given how disorganized he was as a whole.

The bathroom, though... The bathroom...

It had a big, deep tub with a fancy shower-head hanging above it. The toilet was clean and big with a plush seat. The sink space was huge with all kinds of fancy creams and soaps hanging out on it. It was like walking into part an of an entirely different building. What the hell?

Deadpool interrupted his thoughts by flipping the lid of the toilet down and sitting on it. "Kay, Imma need you to pull your—well, technically my—pants down."

"Excuse me," Peter said blankly, not sure how to react.

"Your pants. Pull them down."

"Uh... no. How about I don't do that?"

"Look, kiddo. I already saw your underoos when I was patching you up the first time. They're boring. And your owie is too high up to just pull up the pant leg."

"Stop that! I'm not a kid!" Honestly the condescension was making the whole scenario worse.

"Coulda fooled me with that attitude." Ah, there was that dangerous edge—the real one and not just the fact that his voice naturally sounded menacing. "Listen. I didn't spend a good fifteen minutes painstakingly picking fibers out of your leg so it wouldn't go septic just so that you could bleed out 'cause you're too prissy to take your pants off for strangers. You wanna be treated like a big kid? Act like it."

"Fine!" And with that, Peter quickly pushed the sweatpants down to his knees. "Happy now?"

Chapter 6

Deadpool let out a short gruff laugh with all the musicality of a smoker's rasp. Peter could barely keep himself from wincing because it sounded almost painful.

"Jeeze, if I knew that's all it took to get your pants off," Deadpool said and reached out to manipulate his left thigh in order see the spot better. It wasn't bleeding quite so much anymore since the blood had some time to clot, but it was deep and jagged. Bullets did ugly things to flesh. "Looks like you've got a bit of a healing factor. Like a reeeeal liiiitttle bit. The edges are smoothing out a little."

"Yeah, it takes me a few days less to heal from stuff than most people," he volunteered, feeling a little awkward. Honestly, standing this close to a trained killer with said trained killer's intense stare focused on a gunshot wound on his leg was not good for his heart. The comment about getting his pants off made him more uncomfortable. It was probably meant to lighten the mood but all it did was make him feel more exposed and vulnerable. That wasn't a very good feeling, and it'd been a while since he'd been aquainted with it to this level.

He closed his eyes and swallowed hard as Deadpool pressed a gloved finger against the uneven tear.

"You usually get stitches for stuff like this?"

"Sometimes.," was his vague answer. He got hurt a lot, but rarely bad enough to need stitches. The last time he'd benefited from having been out with the Fantastic 4, and they were pretty generous with their medical care. Only once had he walked into the ER and that had been a goddamn nightmare. He was pretty sure he had real nightmares about the medical bills for years after.

"Well, my wall-crawling friend... This is going to suck for you. Like a whole lot."

Deadpool looked up at him to make eye contact. Well, one-sided eye contact, anyway.

He paled a bit.

"What do you mean by that?" And, to Peter's credit, he kept his voice from shaking.

"I mean you're starting to heal on the sides here, you see? It's not gonna be as numb around the edges anymore. I mean, stitches don't hurt nearly as much as cauterizing, believe me, but it ain't fun."

"Please, keep going. You're really talking up this whole process for me. Really."

There came that ugly laugh again, and Peter just wanted to smack him. This wasn't funny. Just because he seemed utterly immune to how much pain actually hurts didn't mean he was allowed to be a dick to people that were reasonably averse to it.
Deadpool patted his leg above where the sweatpants were bunched up but low enough that it didn't effect the wound too much aside from a small warning pang. Peter stepped back, which was apparently what Deadpool wanted because the man got up and immediately started fumbling through the medicine cabinet.

"Did you take the pills I left out for you?" He didn't look back at Peter as he spoke.

"Nope."

"Good," he mumbled before thrusting pill bottle into Peter's face. "Here, take a couple of these."

"Nope."

"I mean, you were the one grumbling about pain just a minute ago..."

"That doesn't mean I'm going to take some random pills you throw at me."

"You know, you're being a real pain in the ass for someone that just got shot and beaten."

"I, personally, think that's the perfect time to be a pain."

Deadpool sighed heavily. Could a sigh be threatening? Because it genuinely made the hairs on the back of Peter's neck stand straight up. Part of him just wanted to climb back up the wall and take a nap on the ceiling. The last 48 hours were the worst he could remember in a long time, and it should be against the law to hurt as much as he did.

He counted his breaths, trying to calm his anxiety a little before he spoke again.

And, he took the pills from Deadpool.

"All right..."

Deadpool moved into the doorway as Peter popped a couple of pills into his mouth and watched as he used his hand to cup some water from the sink to help swallow them. Peter closed his eyes again and tried to will his heart to stop beating so hard. It hurt his lungs and felt heavy against his sore ribs.

Afterward, Deadpool moved into the kitchen and his "guest" followed. It took a little rummaging, but he finally managed to find an old, battered first-aid kit. Peter felt a little more disheartened since really he only could have used the thing a couple of hours ago.

This time, it was his turn to watch as the man as he cut a bit of what looked like fishing line and stuck it and a needle into a cleaned out whipped cream container. Then, he poured in a generous amount of rubbing alcohol.

"We won't start until the meds kick in, and you're all numb." In most circumstances that would be comforting, but Peter didn't want to lose his wits at the moment, despite having taken the pills voluntarily. Well, mostly voluntarily.

"Why do you even have a first aid kit when your whole thing is being Mr. Indestructible?" he blurted out in a moment of mouth diarrhea.

"I wasn't always "Mr. Indestructible," babe, and old habits die hard." He motioned for Peter to sit down at one of two kitchen chairs, and then added humorlessly, "And sometimes I forget what year it is, so I go looking for it."

Starting to feel too tired to continue putting up a fight, Peter followed the instruction and sat. "You forget that easily?"

"That easily? Babe, memories can get all shuffled when you get hit on the head one too many times. I regrow parts of my brain basically bi-weekly." Deadpool went over to the counter where the instruments were soaking. While he had his back turned, he changed his gloves into blue latex free ones. Those appeared to be in a box just sitting on the counter and used regularly, which struck Peter as weird.
He took the instruments and the rest of the first aid kit and brought them over to the table before sitting across from Peter.

"Is that why your so crazy?" The more the pills kicked in, the more mouth diahrea became a Real Problem. Fear and vicodin were apparently the mortal enemy of well thought out responses.

Deadpool's mouth twisted into a wry smile, but it was muffled enough by the mask that Peter didn't catch the expression. "Oh, sweatheart, there's a lot of stuff banging around up there before you even get to that."

"You're hard as hell to read," Peter confessed, he was getting a little dizzy and tired.

"So I've been told," which was quickly followed by, "So, you ready for this?" Deadpool picked the needle out of the pool of rubbing alcohol and dried it with a piece of gauze.

"Absolutely not."

"Well," the man said, getting down on his knees next to Peter's leg. "That's just too bad, cause I gotta get this done before you topple over on me."

Peter wanted to watch the process very badly just to make sure it was being done fairly correctly, but he just wasn't sure he had a strong enough stomach for that. It wasn't that he was bothered by needles, but watching himself get sewn up felt particularly morbid. He just couldn't do it. Instead, his eyes focused on his hand, sitting loosely on the table. He could feel the needle a little, but it was a very distant pinching.
Of course Deadpool's talking was distracting in its own right. His talent in speaking at great length and ad nauseum about positively nothing was as impressive as his reputation would suggest. But when mixed with the brain static really good pain meds provided, it was almost comforting.

And Peter was too damn tired to care about how repulsive that should be.

Chapter 7

By the time Deadpool finished and taped gauze over the stitches, Peter was just barely clinging to consciousness. He was eager to get away from the whole situation, though, so he stood up as quickly as possible. He needed to stop doing that. Vertigo hit him like a freight train, and he quickly fell back down on the chair.

Of course Deadpool laughed at him. Rude.

"C'mon, Spides," he said, circling his hands uncomfortably close to almost entirely around Peter's forearms to help him up. God, his hands felt massive. "Let's get you back to bed."

Peter didn't want to admit he needed the support of Deadpool's arm wrapped around his shoulders, leading him back to the bedroom. There wasn't much he could do about it, though, so he just leaned into the wall of muscle. Logically, he knew he could lift a bus and the other couldn't, but the super strength wasn't accompanied by super big muscles, so he felt puny and weak again. Just like in his high school days. And, wasn't that a terrifying thought?

"I'm not taking any more pills you give me after this..." he slurred, amazed he got it out without missing any syllables.

"That's fair," the man hummed. "I gave you my stuff, so it's pretty heavy duty."

"Your stuff...?"

"Sweetheart, normal pain meds are like sugar pills for me."

"Didn't think pain bothered you anymore."

"Pain bothers everyone. Just cause it's the new normal doesn't mean it sucks any less."

Peter bit his lower lip. This hadn't really occurred to him because Deadpool typically jumped into painful situations head first-often literally. He had no regard for anyone's safety, let alone his own. "Then why do you still do stupid stuff?"

"Ain't that one of life's great mysteries?"

Deadpool was apparently getting tired of twenty questions because he removed his arm from around Peter without warning, which had the effect of plopping him down on the bed when he tried to catch his balance. He scrabbled up to get his lower half onto the mattress and lay down. He didn't bother getting under the covers because he wanted to avoid moving his leg as much as possible. He was drugged, but it was still kinda sore, albeit in a distant way. When the pills wore off, it'd be worse, and he planned to stick to his announcement of no longer taking any pills his host gave him.

Apparently Deadpool had prepared for this because suddenly a light throw blanket was being tossed over him. He laughed to himself about how a throw was being thrown. It wasn't actually funny, but dear lord was he high enough to think so.

"Sleep it off, bug," Deadpool said, clearly amused.

"Arachnid."

"Oh my god. Whatever."

Peter opened his mouth to say something, but all that came out was a yawn.

When he closed his eyes, medicated sleep took over almost immediately.

Deadpool sat down in the chair next to the bed. He rested his head on his hand, which was in turn rested on his knee. He watched the rise and fall of breathing from underneath the blanket. He watched brown eyelashes flutter but not open.

He sat quietly, for hours, eventually curling in on himself in the little wooden chair.

He watched and waited with little movement as Peter shifted positions several times in his sleep.

Noises from outside filled the dark room in the absence of internal sound.

Engines. Honking. Tires on pavement. Sirens. Muffled shouts.

In the brief, second-long absences of that, crickets.

When the sun started to rise, causing long streaks of soft, early morning light to cascade through the window, Deadpool stood and carefully padded across the room.

The door closed with a gentle "click" behind him.

Peter's eyes snapped open, and he sucked in a shaking breath.

chapter 8

Peter sat up and buried his face in his hands.

He'd been awake for about five unbelievably long minutes before Deadpool left the room. Before he had a chance to open his eyes, his spidey-sense buzzed, alerting him to the presence of another. Naturally, the only thing he could think to do was play possum. He didn't know how convincing his fake sleep act was, so part of him was paranoid that Deadpool knew he was awake for that long. But he wanted to avoid having to confront the whole 'watching him in my sleep thing' as much as possible. It was just one more addition to his list of worrying things about this entire situation.

It took a while, but he finally managed to convince himself to get out of bed. Thankfully, he was less stiff than he was the last time he woke up. There was the acute pain in his leg, but that was easier to deal with than excessive rib pain. While there were still a couple of broken ribs, they weren't as bad off and the bruising/swelling was reduced significantly. That made it easier to move around a bit.

He limped carefully out of the room. When he opened the door, the warm breakfast smells might as well have physically smacked him in the face. His stomach reacted immediately and growled excessively loud. It had been a while since he last ate, hadn't it?

Deadpool glanced back from in front of the stove. Upon confirming Peter was up, he turned up the radio. Suddenly Pat Benatar was blasting through the apartment. Peter how many noise complaints the man tended to get, if he had any neighbors. Thus far he hadn't seen any evidence that he wasn't in an otherwise empty, condemned building. That theory made sense, since he couldn't imagine barred windows were up to fire code (yes, he was still stuck on that—mostly because it limited his mode of escape).

He walked into the kitchen, morbidly curious about what Deadpool was cooking, or rather, mostly ignoring for the sake of a passionate (if off-key) rendition of Hit Me With Your Best Shot. Despite himself, he found a grin trying to spread across his face. Damn his sense of humor; it always popped up in the most inappropriate of times.

The radio got turned back down when the song ended and Jessie's Girl started, which he appreciated for several reasons.

"Are you cooking?"

"No, sweetheart, I'm trying to turn eggs into gold." He paused for a brief second before adding, "Or meth. Because they're so addictive." The offensively terrible joke was punctuated with a wink.

And, strangely, it was only in that moment that Peter realized that Deadpool wasn't wearing the mask for the first time since he woke up there. He wasn't wearing gloves either. He was just in a sweater and some pajama pants.

It wasn't the first time he'd seen Deadpool without his mask before, but he'd never seen him out of the entire costume. It was weird because it was normal and domestic and how the hell did he not notice it until just now?

Deadpool tilted his head, apparently noticing Peter was staring. Peter quickly looked back at the eggs.

"What? No pancakes?" he said lamely.

Deadpool put a hand over his chest, looking absolutely incredulous. "Pancakes, Spidey? Pancakes? Absolutely not! That is a cliche, and I'm not doing it! It's always pancakes! Every time. No. I'm making frittatas. Friiiiiittataaaa. Fun to say, easy to make."

Peter eyed him suspiciously. "You just like it because it's got 'tatas' in it."

"Almost everything is better with tatas, Spidey. Even me, as much as it pains me to admit it."

"Whatever, dude. I'm gonna go use your bathroom."

"Sure, baby. I'll have your plate ready for you when you're out." He made obnoxious kissing noises as Peter walked away, and in return Peter made an obnoxious noise of disgust that made him laugh.

It was strange how relaxed the man was without the mask. For the most part, he was pretty consistent in how careful he was not to show any skin. Yet, when he finally went without it, he wasn't on guard or antsy. He was just messing around—singing along to 80s pop music and making breakfast. Why did he have to act so generally threatening and then be so... normal and domestic. There was no wrapping his head around this truly strange human being.

Everything was made even more confusing when he came back into the kitchen. Deadpool was sitting at the table. The food was all set out like he said it would be. But, for some reason, he had put his mask back on, only to roll it just above his nose.

And in that instant all the tension Peter had released seemed to come crawling right back.

chapter 9

"Why'd you put your mask on?" Peter asked bluntly.

"What? Miss my gorgeous visage?"

"Deadpool." He did his very best to give his voice a hard edge. It was always so much easier to do behind a mask, but it was important to build himself up without it, since he didn't have many options.

"Figured you wanted to talk business," Deadpool mumbled. His lop-sided grin was visible, but it was hard to tell how seriously he was taking this without seeing his eyes.

"What business?" Peter asked, surprisingly even. He placed his hands on the back of his chair but didn't move to sit in it. His own composure surprised him, but maybe he was all panicked out at this point.

"First," He punctuates this by holding up one finger. "You're not gonna trust me. I'm not stupid. No matter how much I assure you I'm not gonna do anything to cause you trouble, you won't believe it. You'll get your buddies involved, and that'll get in the way of my business."

Peter opened his mouth to say something really stupid, but Deadpool started speaking again before he got anything out.

"Second," A second finger went up. "You wanna know what my business there was, and maybe I'm inclined to tell you. But I gotta trust you, and my trust don't come easy either, you feel?"

Peter's grip tightened on the back of the chair. He stopped short of causing the wood to crack because he was considerate like that, but it would feel good to break something right about now. This conversation was making him antsy. "So what do you propose?"

"We need to reach an understanding." Deadpool started fiddling with a fork as he leaned back in his chair. Something about the ease of the pose felt sleazy. The atmosphere quickly slipped into a bad extortion scene in an old gangster film. It was ridiculous. It made Peter feel ridiculous, and that made him angrier.

"What? You're going to hold my identity over my head?"

"Kiddo, I don't know your face from the next college-age brat on the street. If I wanted to know who you were that bad, don't you think I'd know by now? Shit, tailing is more than half my job, and you're real goddamn sloppy."

Sloppy... He was sloppy... That was how he'd gotten into this mess in the first place, wasn't it?

"Take your mask off," he blurted out, surprising himself almost as much as his host.

"What?"

"You heard me. Take your mask off. You want me to trust you? Talking to me face to face will go a long way in that direction."

"Business talk means the mask is on."

"This isn't business. This is my life." Peter ground out, barely keeping his voice steady. The wood between his hands finally cracked just a little under the strain of his grip.

Deadpool cocked his head to the side slightly, clearly thinking about it. He wasn't grinning anymore. There was more of a terse frown. After a couple seconds he sighed and pulled the mask off.

"Better?"

"Yes."

The man motioned for him to sit and he did. Within a few seconds there was a very large helping of frittata on his plate. He picked up the fork and started moving the food around while looking pointedly at Deadpool.

"Look. I'm not exactly known for being a very trustworthy fellow. But maybe you'd feel better if I gave you some leverage. Something you can hold over my head. But I'm not a very trusting fellow either, so in exchange you give me your name."

"Everybody already knows your name, Wade Wilson," Peter grumbled.

Meanwhile, Deadpool had pulled his wallet out of his pocket—who carries their wallet in their pajama pants?-and was fishing around for something. He eventually found it and tossed it on the table in front of Peter, who reached over and picked it up. It was a school photo of a little girl with a wide grin that was missing several teeth.

"Is this supposed to mean something to me?"

"Give me a name, and you'll find out."

Peter pursed his lips and stared at the picture. There were several guesses he had for the story behind the picture, but there was a certain morbid curiosity to find out what was the right one. It seemed like something big, but he wouldn't put it past Deadpool to be tricking him to trade his identity for something meaningless or just out-right lie to him.

But, he did make a good point before. If he really wanted to know who he was, it wouldn't be that hard for him. And if this somehow tied into the gang's attack, he needed to know. Especially if the girl was somehow involved. He couldn't turn his back on that.

He closed his eyes and sucked in a terse breath.

"My name is Peter Parker," he almost whispered.

"Well, Pete," said Deadpool through a mouthful of frittata. "Meet Ellie Camacho. My daughter."

Peter dropped his fork, but he also managed not to choke on air, so that was a win in his book.

Chapter 10

"I'm sorry," Peter said, utter disbelief dripping from his voice. "Clearly I'm suffering some side effects of whatever you gave me and am hallucinating. I thought I heard you say this is your daughter."

"You heard me right, pipsqueak. The paternity tests say it's true."

Deadpool calmly continued eating his eggs while Peter was screaming internally. Having a daughter did not at all fit in with his mental image of the man. He couldn't reconcile it with what he knew of him. Half the time Deadpool came off as an over-sized child himself. How do things like this happen? Certainly he seemed irresponsible enough to have a child by accident but not mature and responsible enough to be carrying around a picture of her but also keep her as a tightly held secret (unlike his personal identity).

"How?" was about all Peter got out between the racing thoughts.

"Well, Spidey, when two adults are locked in a pimp's game room and the odds aren't looking good, sometimes they use that as an excuse to release a little tension, if you catch my drift."

"Oh my god," Peter said, burying his face in his hands. "Please stop."

"Gonna have the mental image of me doing the nasty burned in your head forever." Deadpool said with a grin. He was clearly trying to make this worse.

"Stooop. No. I'm just trying to wrap my head around you being a parent and not letting it slip somehow."

Deadpool sat up straight and gave Peter the most insulted expression. He was so damn expressive without the mask muffling it. "I can keep secrets! I keep LOTS of secrets!"

Peter raised an eyebrow, and that only served to egg the man on.

"Hey! Don't give me that look! A lot of merc business is 'don't ask, don't tell' kinda junk. You gotta know how to keep your mouth shut about a lot of things. And you gotta know how to keep secrets to keep connections. Honor among thieves and what-not. Ya won't get far if you blabber about everything you hear. Loose lips sink ships, Spidey. Namely, your own. Ask Captain America about that one."

Peter closed his eyes and rubbed his forehead. All this... mess could be mentally sorted out later. He needed to get back on topic.

"Yeah, okay, but what about what happened to me? Why were you just conveniently there when I got jumped?"

"Oh, yeah, that." The man slumped back in his chair. His mouth twisted in a curious expression as he looked off to the side. It was interesting to see him actually try to formulate how to say something instead of just blurting out what first popped into his head.

"See, the thing about that is... I can give you some details, but not a whole lot without permission to bring you into the fold."

"That's... I don't know if I want you bringing me up to anyone," Peter said with a heavy frown.

"Well... Yeah, but... I gotta explain why I blew my cover when I report in. I'm not gonna give a whole lot of details, but like... you know... mentioning you is kind of important? And I'm not sure I can explain why yet."

Peter's frown deepened.

"Deadpool. Wade. No," he implored. "I don't want to be brought into this with other people until I know the whole situation."

"That's gonna be a problem." The man sighed heavily. "You're gonna make this difficult. See, I can't bring you into the fold without my employer's permission, and you don't want me to tell my employer about you. I'm kinda in a bind here, man."

"Tell me what you can."

"Well, it's like this: local gang is under new management. Usually it's 'new boss, same as the old boss.' Not this time. Local gang goes from slinging coke to not dealing in drugs anymore. Instead they start picking on mutants hardcore. Then they start expanding and moving into different neighborhoods."

"I already know this."

"Well, my employer has deep pockets and isn't liking this new status quo. I've been doing surveillance on their movements for weeks now. Unfortunately, there's a little snag in that plan of operations."

"You blew your cover."

"Yeah, this ungrateful brat was getting beat up on pretty bad. Couldn't just leave him to that crowd."

Peter rolled his eyes. He stared at his food that was probably starting to grow cold. It was hard to have an appetite while he was trying to digest all of this information.

"I don't get why they were so pissed off at me if they just target mutants."

"Babe, you're the hero of the streets. You've interrupted so many beatings, I haven't had to blow my cover. It's a 'if you're with them, you're against us' kinda deal with those types."

Something about that made Peter feel a little better. It wasn't the fact that he had another group of people to look out for. It was more that what he was doing was making a real difference for some people. It actually wasn't that often that people appreciated his help, given how much the news ragged on him. Even the Avengers had a tendency to treat him as generally ineffective.

He had mixed feelings about getting the validation he needed from a mercenary, but, well, beggars can't be choosers.

Chapter 11

"You know, breakfast is the most important meal of the day, Spidey," Deadpool announced, abruptly changing the subject. He gestured with his fork at Peter's plate of uneaten food. "You're a growing boy and you need your protein and veggies."

"Pleeease, stop doing that," Peter groaned. "I'm twenty-six. I don't need the baby talk. It's obnoxious."

"Well, I am known for being pretty damn obnoxious." This was said with a shit-eating grin. Peter glared back. "But for real, there's an easy way to get me to stop."

"You're going to annoy me into getting your way? Jeeze, 'Pool, how often does that work for you?" Peter pointed at him with his fork before adding, "Now who's the kid?"

"Still you."

In an incredibly mature move, Peter stuck out his tongue in response. Deadpool, instead of commenting, mirrored the action. It was alarming how easy their stupid banter clicked.

Finally deciding to bite the bullet, Peter took a big bite of (mildly pulverized from his bad table manners) frittata. It was... really good. Not amazing, but still delicious. The ingrediants were cheap-the vegetables had that certain texture that fresh veggies most certainly did not have. But it wasn't like he grew up with a lot of money. That texture made it more weirdly nostagic than anything.

Peter chewed and continued to consider the taste for a bit while Deadpool watched him, anticipation clear in eyes. There was a bit of a nervous fidget. He was like an excided puppy when he wasn't being genuinely terrifying.

"Weeeellll?" He finally prompted when he'd gotten enough of waiting.

It took considerable effort for Peter to contain a laugh, but he did it. "It's good."

"Just good?" he asked, looking a little disappointed.

"What do you want me to say? It's orgasmic? The sex of egg dishes?"

"Yes, absolutely." He blinked a few times as if this was the exact answer he wanted to hear, and it should have been completely obvious.

Peter wasn't able to hold in at least a little bit of a laugh if only because of the expression on Deadpool's face. He took a second to regain composure before speaking.

"I'm sorry, 'Pool. I have to dock points for presentation alone. This dish just doesn't wow me."

"Ugh, fuck cooking competitions. The judges dock points for presentation... Who the fuck caaaares? If the food tastes good, it tastes good. I mean, it all ends up getting digested anyway. Spend all this time making food look delicate and perfect and it's just gonna be ruined five seconds later. It's a technicality is what it is, Spidey. It's a nitpick. A whiner's complaint. What is even the deal with five-star restaurants anyway? Like, you have to go in a suit. They get suuuper pissy if you're not dressed to the nines. Then you gotta wait an extra thirty minutes so they can make your food look perfect. No, give me an ugly looking home-cooked meal any day over some snobby-ass waiter staring down his nose at me."

Sometime during this unexpected rant Peter managed to finish the giant helping Deadpool had given him. It was like as soon as he had taken one bite, he realized how hungry he was, so he kept shoveling giant fork-fulls into his mouth. He ate sloppily and without consistently making sure his mouth was closed. It wasn't like his host was paying much attention. Or maybe he was; it was hard to tell sometimes.

It took him a minute to realize that the rant was done. He took a long drink of the water sitting in front of him before making his own contribution to filling the silence.

"I think the general idea is to revel in opulance and make people that weren't taught the proper rules etiquette feel uncomfortable."

"Man, but I do love being the rude aye-eff neuveau riche asshole: too rich to throw out, too annoying to ignore."

Peter snorted. That little description painted a very vivid picture. He could imagine Deadpool going places, purposefully waiving his money around while being on his worst behavior just to see how long it took them to get fed up enough for the money not to matter.

He was pulled out of this imagined scenario when Deadpool spoke again.

"You should take it easy today," he had muttered fondly, almost shyly.

The sudden mood whiplash left Peter feeling a little dizzy.

Chapter 12

"I plan on going home," Peter said firmly.

Deadpool tensed up a little and cocked his head to the side. "You plan on swinging out with broken ribs or walking down six flights of stairs with stitches you already ripped out once?"

"I need to go home," he said almost desperately, his throat going dry. This conversation was not going in the direction he wanted it to. He knew it wouldn't, but it still made him anxious and frustrated. "I've got things to do... A life to get back to."

"I'm pretty sure your 'things to do' would kinda be difficult with, you know, a punctured lung or two and and a major infection, give or take a pint of blood. I mean, it doesn't stop me for long, so if you wanna give it a go, be my guest. Let's see how well your baby healing factor fairs."

"That's not fair," Peter breathed. "I can't stay here."

"See, that's the beauty of it. You really can."

Suddenly the apartment felt too small. The bars in the windows felt all the more apparent.

It was like a cage.

"Deadpool, you can't make me stay. I'm leaving." He did his very best to make sure his voice came out firm and even, trying to bury his anxiety under a sheet of solid stubbornness.

Deadpool cocked his head to the other side. He gripped his mask that had been sitting on the table and stared at Peter for a long moment. Then, he put the mask back on.

And if that didn't get Peter's poor little heart racing...

"Are you seriously going to try to intimidate me into doing what you want?"

Deadpool went rigid for a moment.

Then, he stood up. He walked over to the counter and pulled out a drawer with more force than necessary. After a little rummaging, he brandished a large knife. Peter's spidey sense buzzed, getting more intense as the man walked back over and stood next to him.

Before Peter had much time to react, Deadpool thrust the knife into the table next to his plate. The blade sunk a few inches into the wood. It was a good thing his other hand was on the back of the chair to steady it because Peter jumped enough that it surely would have tipped over.

"What the hell?" he demanded, scrambling out of the chair to put some space between them. His leg protested with shooting pain.

"I'm losing patience, okay? I'm not a patient guy, and I've been really fucking patient your dumb shit so far. Is this what you want? Is this what you'll respond to? You want threats? Go back to bed or I'll go all Misery on your skinny ass. How's that for a threat?"

"Weren't you just talking about trust a minute ago? This is a pretty dumb way to try to create trust, Deadpool!"

"I said I don't expect you to trust me, and I don't. That's why we have leverage over each other. Go back to bed, Peter Parker, unless you want to take your chances and see if I'm bluffing."

Peter stared at Deadpool in disbelief. His chest rose and fell with heavy breaths that hurt, but he couldn't afford to work himself into another panic attack. He was normally very fast. Maybe if he could block out the pain for a couple seconds, he could make it to the door...

But that was a crap-shoot, and it was true. He genuinely didn't trust Deadpool; he couldn't be the least bit sure that the Misery threat wasn't honest and literal. So, he started walking toward the bedroom, making sure that his host stayed in his line of sight until he could hide behind a shut door.

"Yeah, that's what I thought."

Chapter 13

After Peter retreated into the room, he sat down on the floor next to the bed, his back pressed up against the far wall. He drew his uninjured leg up to his chest, letting the other one stay straight since he had already just been straining it just a moment ago. He hugged the leg tightly and rested his cheek on his knee. For a while he just breathed. He felt incredibly disoriented, and he needed to get his head on straight if he was going to make some kind of plan.

So, today was a bust.

Deadpool had made it very clear that he won't budge, and Peter just wasn't well enough to fight. He didn't know whether or not this forced rest would be applied tomorrow, but by then he should be in better shape to at least outrun any attempts to keep him there. His ribs would still be tender and weak, though, so too much effort would be a problem. He'd have to strategize an escape.

He rested there for a little while until the position put too much pressure on his still healing ribs, so he crawled back into bed. He couldn't sleep, of course. Any noise from outside the room made him jump a little bit. The unfortunate side-effect from his spidey sense was that he was in a state of hypervigilance around danger, which was just not helpful at the moment since there wasn't a whole lot he could do about it.

After a little while, he got up and paced a little bit. He found out which boards creaked and how loudly. He very carefully tested them to see if he could easily make a path from the bed to the door without any creaking. It turned out he would be able to with a fair amount of hopping, so with however much he was healed the next day, he should be fine. Thankfully, (exempting injury) he was generally pretty light on his feet.

When he got bored with that, he put his ear up to the crack between the door and the jamb and listened for Deadpool. For a little while he got nothing but creaks of the floor and some tv noises. He was mentally debating on the pros and cons of just walking out there and admitting he needed something to do when he finally heard something interesting.

One of those default cell phone ringtones sounded off. Deadpool answered almost immediately.

It was hard to hear anything he was saying. Some parts were mumbled or muffled by other sounds, including (but not limited to) the tv. It sounded like the man was pacing, so some of it was closer in proximity to the door than other parts.

"-did you expect-?"

"No, he's-"

"-Weird thing is, I think it did. Just-"

"-not kidding."

"-up the wall. LIterally."

Peter's heart dropped. The discussion was definitely about him. Was that Deadpool's employer on the other line?

"Fuck, no. You can't just-"

"-of course I-"

"-here now-"

"Fine. 'Kay. What do you think I should do?"

He froze. It sounded like Deadpool was standing right in front of the door. It was probably severely paranoid, but he tried to keep his breathing as quiet as possible. Part of him was worried that his heart was beating too loudly and would give him away.

"That's pretty tough because he's kinda part of this now. And, I can't relay half the shit you need. He doesn't trust me." The last sentence was said in a kind of taunting singsong voice that gave Peter a shiver up his spine.

A pause followed.

"That's not helpful. I need you to tell me how much I'm allowed to tell him right now."

There was a much longer pause that must have lasted almost ten minutes in which Deadpool started tapping his foot impatiently.

"Is that the Word of God? Or are you still giving me shit?"

He could hear the sound of muffled speaking from over the phone, so apparently he was getting an earful.

"All right, sweetheart. Thanks for the message. See you soon! Kisses!"

A loud beep from the phone indicated the end of the call. Deadpool snickered before speaking again.

"Hear that Spidey? You're OFFICIALLY part of this now!" the man called through the door.

Chapter 14

Deadpool knocked on the door, giving Peter enough time to scuttle backwards before he opened it. Peter, having no idea how to react, mostly just pressed himself back against the wall, instinctively standing on the balls of his feet should he need to jump away quickly. Not that jumping was a very good idea and would probably only work more toward inciting anger in his host than anything else.

Meanwhile, Deadpool calmly walked over to the bed and sat on it, facing Peter. He pulled his legs up to sit criss-cross and rested his hands on his ankles. That damn mask was still on, obscuring his expressions.

"I know you're mad at me, but we gotta have our little powwow while you're still here, 'kay?"

"I asked you not to mention me to anyone."

"Well, I didn't use your name. Just 'a mutate.' Thought it'd be a good compromise. Sticky fingers aren't exactly special enough to give you away. Sorry."

Peter let out a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. He forced himself to stand with his feet fully on the ground, though he still kept himself against the wall. It'd take more than that to win him over after his display in the kitchen.

"Is it really all that important that I'm a mutate?"

"Yeah, pretty damn important actually. I can't tell you a whole lot until you meet with my employer, but there's this thing-"

"Woah, hold it. Back up. Meet with your employer?"

"Well, yeah." Deadpool said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "That's the nature of the game. The only thing you know about my employer is that they're in the business of mutant interests, and they got the cash to afford me. The only thing they know about you is that you're a mutate that was attacked by a mutual enemy. You see where this is going? Everyone's pretty fucking skittish. Figured it'd be best for you to meet on even ground."

"Was part of your contract to kill anyone?" Peter asked quickly. He hadn't spent a whole lot of time dwelling on this, but it and several other questions had been weighing on the back of his mind.

Deadpool stared at him for a moment before speaking. "Not in so many words."

"What does that mean?"

"It means, that I'm not contracted to specifically kill anyone, no." He shrugged and looked to the side, seeming a little uncomfortable. That was something in common with all their meetings. He always acted a bit shy and spoke vaguely when discussing the dirtier parts of his jobs. In all honesty, it was incredibly frustrating. "But, you know... If a mutant's getting got, I get the getter."

Peter sucked in a heavy breath. The implications of that statement hit him hard. "Did you…?" He swallowed thickly. "Did you get the getters before?"

"The ones that got you, you mean."

"Yes."

"No," Deadpool said firmly, his evasive demeanor quickly disappearing. "Didn't think you'd appreciate it much."

"Okay," Peter muttered, trying to calm himself down. "Okay, okay, okay. Okay."

"Chill, Beyoncé." There was more fondness than humor in Deadpool's voice, and that kind of surprised Peter given how much the man liked to tease him. "Take a deep breath, and ask what yer gonna ask. Just spit it out."

With that major anxiety lifted from his shoulders, Peter looked at him with a new determination. He still wished he could make proper eye contact with the man. There was a very large part of him that was still feeling very skittish, and it wasn't like it wasn't for good reason. Still, this was important. This wasn't just about him. There were already people that had gotten hurt, and he was in a position to help stop it.

If that meant jumping into a dangerous situation blindly, all right. It wasn't like he didn't already do that on pretty much a nightly basis anyway. And so what if he was being led into it by someone that more than mildly terrified him? He should really be an old hat at this by now.

Goddamn, his sense of responsibility was going to get him killed someday.

"What can you tell me about the situation?" he finally asked.

"Now we're in business!"

Chapter 15

Deadpool patted the open space on the bed next to him, implying that Peter should take a seat. Peter simply shook his head in response. "You sure? This might be kinda long. I am known for being long winded, beating round the bush, and generally using ten words where two would do."

"I'm sure." Peter crossed his arms over his chest. It wasn't so much to do with stubborn refusal as it was in an unconscious movement dictated by his reptilian brain.

"You'll get all sore just standing there." There was an exaggerated pout in Deadpool's voice. Peter narrowed his eyes in response. His arms tightened over his chest, causing a little bit of extra pain.

Deadpool threw up his hands in defeat. "Fine, fine, fine." The man slipped off the bed and sat in the chair, crossing his legs again so that he was still sitting in the same position as before. "Is that better?"

Peter nodded. He crawled onto the bed, making sure that he was sitting as far as he could manage from his host. Once he settled down a little, he sunk down into the bed. It was soft foam that seemed to want to swallow him. He couldn't help but be a little jealous of the mattress. It couldn't have been cheap, and it was soft and comfortable. It occurred to him the moment he sat down that he was far more sore than he thought. Anxiety had a bad habit of hiding that.

"Comfy?" Deadpool asked, ruining the brief second of relaxation.

"Start talking, 'Pool. What can you tell me about what's happening?"

"All right, all right. Straight to business. No time for pleasantries. I get it." Deadpool started, causing Peter to roll his eyes. "Ooooh, man. This is going to be a doozy, my creepy crawly friend. There's a lot of weird shit and a lot we don't know. But if your questions go toward areas I can't answer, I'm just gonna say 'spumoni.'"

That caused Peter to raise an eyebrow. "Did you really just pick a safe word for a conversation?"

In return, Deadpool gave a sharp, unexpected laugh. "You know, that's not what I was thinking, but you're right. That's my safe word now. It's important to set those up right away, sweetheart."

With a practiced exhausted expression, Peter tried to get the conversation back on topic. "You said there was 'weird shit.' What's weird about it? So far it seems pretty straight forward."

"Oh! Yeah, see, this whole thing actually started a while before the attacks even started."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean," His voice stressed the last word as he put a hand over his chest and leaned forward a little, as though offended at being interrupted. Peter had been doing a lot of it, but it wasn't as though he really had much right to get uppity about it. Pot, kettle, black. "That there were a lot of rumors coming out of M-town that had a lotta mutants worried. You see, it was going around that some people were going missing. Mostly homeless mutants. The kinda people that people don't really care about and wouldn't notice much. But it was still enough for people in that neighborhood to get kinda itchy about staying out alone after dark. Mutants outside of M-town got wind of it and were feeling a little itchy, too, but there was really fuck all they could do with rumors."

"Makes sense." This wasn't something Peter had heard anything about, but he wasn't actually around mutants very much. He certainly worked with them, but they had a tendency to be very insular, not that he blamed them. Just because someone would work with a mutant didn't mean they were safe, and he honestly didn't ask much anyway.

"Fast forward a couple of months. People were getting pretty paranoid, right? Scared of their own shadows. But it's not like police take rumors seriously, especially if muties are the ones getting hurt."

"Could you not use slurs so casually?"

"Why? You aren't a mutant." There was a certain hollowness to the statement. It was clearly a callback to what Peter said earlier.

He shrugged sheepishly. "Yeah, okay, I deserved that. But still…"

"I get it, baby boy. Gotta be a good ally and all that jazz. Not a mutant, shouldn't use mutant slurs. Anyyyway…" Deadpool rolled his hand and spoke out of the corner of his mouth as though telling himself to get on with it. It was a strange gesture. "It changed when they took the wrong person. It wasn't anyone high profile enough to get the cops or media interested, but a little girl went missing, and that little girl had a family. It was a big ass deal in mutant communities. Even the X-Dweebs got involved with the search party."

"If this was so low profile, how do you know about it?"

"Spumoni."

Peter rubbed his face with one hand, trying to figure out how to maybe rework the question so he could get an answer. Instead he ended up asking, "Was the girl ever found?"

Deadpool went rigid, and his voice came out particularly terse as he spoke. "No. There was nothing to go off. She was just gone."

"Oh." He could easily see how hard the man took it, and that made a lot of sense now that he knew Deadpool had a daughter himself. It's hard not to project those kinds of feelings. However, Peter was phenomenally terrible with feelings. He knew he should say something, but he couldn't figure out what, and it just made him feel incredibly awkward. He did the next best thing: changed the subject. "So when did this lead to the gang takeover or whatever?"

"Oh, yeah," Deadpool perked up immediately, taking the opportunity to mask his negative emotions as quickly possible. He didn't do well with that kind of vulnerability. "A few more people with families went missing, and everyone started to get reeeal mad about the radio silence from police and media. It was around the time someone was starting to organize a protest that the first beating happened."

"There was a beating at a protest?" He was really shocked he didn't hear about that one.

"Oh, there was no protest. That got canned when the potential protesters were all hospitalized."

Peter winced. Okay, so this was definitely getting into real life conspiracy business. There were way too many factors sliding together perfectly to create a pretty ugly puzzle.

"It was pretty much business as usual with mutant rights junk tee-bee-ayech. But that's when things got all beginning of a Twilight Zone episode."

"Oh really?"

"Yep." He popped the 'p' for effect. "Couple of 'em started showing weird symptoms. High fevers, seizures, mutations kinda shorting in and out. Hella weird to see. Oh, yeah, and sudden death. That was a thing."

Chapter 16

That certainly got Peter's attention. He sat up more and pulled his legs in, subconsciously mimicking Deadpool's body language. It was amazing how often he forgot about the leg. He hissed at the little bit of pain, not for the first or last time that day. The injury was already more resilient to movement than it was that morning, though, thanks to what Deadpool had dubbed his "baby healing factor."

"So… What caused it?" he asked, his voice gaining a certain amount of energy from his interest. "Is there something injected or swallowed? Breathed in? Absorbed through the skin?"

"Autopsy didn't give much, mostly because the medical examiner was a regular." Regular was a kind of slang term for non-mutant. Peter didn't hear it very often, but he knew what it meant. "But," he continued "I think there's something that coats bullets, gloves, and pretty much anything used as a weapon. It makes the point of impact where skin is broken look all acid burned. It's some gnarly shit."

Peter cocked his head to the side. "You have access to autopsy photos?"

In response, Deadpool snorted. He scratched his cheek through the mask. "Yeah, I got access to the autopsy photos. It's what I was originally hired for."

"You stole the autopsy reports?" Peter didn't know why this surprised him, but somehow it did. He wondered how many clandestine operations sneaking into mortuaries Deadpool experienced in his career. The thought was a little amusing to him.

"Stole?" There came that dramatic offended look, complete with pearl clutching pose (though there were no actual pearls to clutch). God, the man was such a complete ham. "Please, Spidey. I am a professional. Stealing would bring attention to someone having interest in them, which is the last thing you want in this kinda situation."

"Oh," Peter mumbled, surprised at how much sense that made and how he hadn't thought of that. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"Damn straight, I'm right." Deadpool stopped his overacting and went back into his more relaxed position. "Also, Ted and I are pretty good friends at this point, so he's cool with me snooping around in exchange for a good old fashioned Benjamin."

"You're friends with the medical examiner?"

"Pfft, yeah. Pretty much every medical examiner in this city knows me or knows of me. It's, like, at least once a month I'm stuffed in a body bag while my insides are still repairing. Not just this city, actually. This nice lady mortician in Chicago made me a cutesy medical bracelet saying 'I'm not really dead! Do not dissect!' I mean, I totally lost it, but it was great while I had it. Can't remember her name either..." He looked off to the upper right as if trying to recall the woman's name.

Meanwhile, Peter was trying to wrap his head around the implication that Deadpool had most likely been through at least a partial autopsy before. He couldn't help the horrified expression that formed on his face. No wonder why the dude was so completely morbid. Jesus.

"Hey," Deadpool said, lifting his mask very briefly just for the sake of sticking his tongue out at Peter. "Close your mouth. You're gonna catch flies. … Unless… Do you… Do you eat flies?"

Aaaaand there it was. Peter's face went from horrified to deadpanned in a quick couple of seconds. "You're not creative or funny."

"You just can't appreciate good spider related comedy. It's been spoiled for you. You're biased."

He really needed to start a tally for how many times he rolled his eyes that day. He might actually be breaking a record. Sighing, he rubbed his face, trying to get his brain back on topic. The subject of waking up during the middle of an autopsy was a nightmare for another day. "Okay, since you guys had access to an autopsy report, are there any theories on what exactly the chemical compound is doing to affect mutants?"

Deadpool opened his mouth to talk, but a sudden realization hit Peter in the seconds after ending his question. He immediately voiced it, cutting Deadpool off. "Oh my god! That's why it's important that I'm a mutate!"

Leaning far back in the chair, Deadpool stared at him with a mixture of surprise, confusion, and insult for being interrupted before he even got the chance to utter a syllable. The fact that all of this was visible with just body language and a few creases in the mask was kind of amazing, actually, but Peter was too wrapped up in things starting to piece together to properly appreciate it. Which was also offensive, for the record.

"Yes," Deadpool said, not moving so that he could continue to convey his generally affronted reaction. "That's what I was trying to tell you."

"So, I definitely got whammied, but it didn't affect me, so it's got something to do with the x-gene specifically? That makes sense but, it's pretty advanced for a street gang to get its hands on." Peter was way too excited about this, and Deadpool was trying to make it very clear with his body language that it weirded him out.

"Woaahh. Chill out, nerdling. Relax." It was Peter's turn to stick out his tongue in a childish gesture. Deadpool actually had to roll his whole head to convey that he was rolling his eyes, which Peter found to be kind of hilarious and stupid. It could be avoided completely if he would just take the thing off. "Here's the thing, Spider-Nerd. You got a small burn around your wounds. It healed before you woke up, but you were burning up for a while there, too. Took a while and a lot of ice to get your temp down."

Peter's shoulders slumped. Okay, so he was affected by it most likely, just not to the extent that mutants were. That certainly explained why he couldn't manage to dodge the bullet before, but it also blew his burgeoning theories out of the water. He chewed his bottom lip while he tried to think about what it meant.

"Wade?" he asked suddenly, his voice thin with concern.

"Yes, sweetums?"

"How long was I out for?"

Deadpool did that squirming thing he did when he didn't want to answer something, and that made Peter's heart drop. Up until now he assumed it'd just been a few hours. He could only remember bits and pieces of coming in and out of consciousness, but it wasn't nearly enough for it to have taken that much time. Then again, he didn't remember any ice.

"Wade," he said with more force this time.

"Probably like two days?" Deadpool offered with an uncomfortable shrug. He knew Peter wasn't going to like the answer very much.

Well, he wasn't wrong.

Chapter 17

"What do you mean I was out for two days?" Peter demanded. "What were you thinking? I could have died from dehydration alone! When were you going to take me to a hospital?"

"Relax," came Deadpool's response. From the tone of his voice, he seemed to think it was no big deal, but his refusal to even look in Peter's general direction was not comforting. "You weren't out-out the whole time, you know? Spent the first day and a half going in and out, all delirious and shit."

"But I don't remember any of it." That part disturbed Peter the most. He stared down at his hands. The concept of being awake and doing things and not remembering them was particularly terrifying. Losing a couple of days, even a couple of days where he was sick and not fully cognizant of his surroundings, was no small thing.

Deadpool looked at Peter with strange, almost child-like body language before giving a big shoulder-rolling shrug. He settled back into a more confident pose. "So, you had some kinda unknown drug in your system without knowing it was there. Least you know you were here sweating it out instead of having a big blank space in your calendar and no explanation. And, hey. It's just me that knows your face instead of a whole hospital staff. And you got to skip the catheter. I'd call this a Best Case Scenario, if I ever did see one."

Peter winced at the mention of a catheter. Yeah, okay, that was definitely a plus. He'd never actually needed on before, but the idea of them skeeved him out to no end. At least that was one bullet he managed to dodge. Still, the whole thing unsettled him. He didn't like it one bit.

"Is memory loss a normal symptom of this poison?" he asked before chewing on his lower lip in thought. He could think of a few compounds associated with memory loss off the top of his head, but it was by no means a complete list.

"Beats me. No one else that's come in contact with it has lived." The fact that Deadpool could say this so calmly while examining his fingernails was incredibly infuriating. He was so casual with the discussion of other people's lives being lost.

"Are there any guesses as to what might be causing this, then?" Peter's voice raised as his frustration bubbled under the surface.

"I dunno." Another shrug. This one was more careless-more of a half shrug expending as little energy as possible. "I tend to tune out when the pseudo-science guessing games start up. Need me to get it out of someone? Fine, I'll memorize it for ya. Even translate it from Bloody Gurgle. But I wasn't hired for some guessing game bullshit. Not my area of expertise, and I don't really give a flying fuck as long as someone figures out a way to stop it."

"You do realize that the guessing game is how people figure out how to stop it, right?" The frustration was reaching a real proper boil. The dismissal of the process reminded Peter of that meathead mentality of people that dismissed theoretical science but reaped the benefits of all the work produced from it. That was where his own passion lied, after all. He gripped the blanket tightly in his fists.

"Yeah, duh. No shit. Of course. But I'm not a part of that process, and I don't wanna be. I've had enough pseudo-science guess work thrown at me over the years. The only explanation I need is 'is this going to hurt' and 'is there a way to fix it.' I don't need the ifs, ands, hows, and whys. I'm hired muscle. You can be the brains of the operation if you want, baby, it's all yours. I want no part in it."

Deadpool had moved from examining his fingernails to picking loose skin from the sores on his fingers and flicking it on the ground. He kept that disinterested lilt to his voice and tilt to his head. But, his hands shook a little as the tell to his game face.

The reaction to this sight was instantaneous. It was like the heat was taken off Peter's mood. He felt the tension disperse from his muscles. His shoulders hung loosely as he stared at that tall, heavily-muscled man picking at his fingers like a nervous kid with eczema.

Is this going to hurt?

That felt very specifically worded, and Peter didn't know what to make of it. It occurred to him once again that he knew jack shit about the man sitting in front of him. Up until yesterday he wouldn't have thought that the question would mean very little, if anything, to him. This little window into the world of Wade Wilson felt strange. Wrong, even. Like everything had shifted a few inches to the left, and he was the only one that could tell.

"All right," Peter mumbled. "I guess I can get filled in on the running theories when I meet your employer."

"Probably for the best. I know fuck all about sciencey shit anyway."

Chapter 18

Peter stared at Deadpool for a long moment. The fidgeting got worse under his unwavering gaze, and he felt on some level that he shouldn't care since the man did a whole lot to make him uncomfortable just that day, but he kind of did care.

From what he could tell, there was very little about Deadpool that wasn't self destructive, from his bad decision making to his nervous habits. It was hard not to wonder about the time before he had a healing factor, and if he was this self destructive even then. If he picked his fingers til they bled when he was uncomfortable. If he threw himself in the way of things that could potentially kill him on missions. If he pulled stunts that should break every damn bone in his body without so much as a moment's hesitation.

Plenty of people were like that and just slid by on a seemingly endless well of dumb luck. It seemed something so completely inherent to his personality but his personality felt so slippery at the best of times. Every moment he felt he had a grasp on it, it slid through the cracks between his fingers like a fine sand.

"Well, anyway, it'll prooobably be a few days til they can organize a meetup. They're kinda anxious about it but they gotta make sure it's secure and all that jazz." He kept picking. It wasn't so bad at first. A little bit of blood didn't pool enough to drip. It just stayed stationary, a little red pinpoint hidden in the midst of sores. He kept talking and looking at Peter, though, so his attention didn't move from finger to finger like before. He kept pinching and scratching and pulling that one spot. "'Sides, it'll give you some time to rest up. It's best to go into these things ready to go if things head south. I mean, my employer ain't gonna turn on us or nothin', but there's a lotta stuff you can't account for. Gotta be on your toes. Apparently literally. Is that a thing you do? Like, usually? You were all like a cat on your tippy-toes before. Are you part jumping spider? That'd be pretty freaking cool. Those are badass."

Deadpool kept blathering, seemingly unaware of the blood starting to spread under his absentminded fidgeting. Peter didn't like it. He didn't like seeing it. Something about it made the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. It wasn't self harm with intent behind it. Instead, it seemed accidental in nature-as easy as scratching a bug bit til it bled. Which somehow didn't make it any better.

Eventually Peter reached over and grabbed Deadpool's hands tightly in one hand to keep them from moving. The man stiffened under his touch, and tried to pull away on instinct. Peter didn't let go.

"Stop it," he said in a short, rigid tone.

That had Deadpool floundering for words. Peter could tell because he could see his jaw open and closed several times before finally settling on something. "I don't get you."

Well, he in turn certainly threw Peter through a loop. "For real? You're saying that to me?"

"Yeah, I'm saying it to you. What's your deal, Spider-Twerp? One second you're shaking in your drawers, refusing to get within a couple feet of me. Then the next you're bossing me around and going all spider strength on me."

Peter winced, and loosened his grip on Deadpool's hands. He hadn't realized he'd been holding on quite so tightly, to be entirely honest.

"Yeah, what about you? You act all friendly one minute, then you put on your mask and start trying to intimidate me. Yeah, you freaked me out, because you stuck a knife in your own kitchen table, dude. But I'm not about to let you bully me through this whole thing. I'm involved now, right? So we're doing this on equal footing or not at all. And excuse me for not wanting to watch you make yourself bleed, asshole."

"Awww, I didn't know you cared. You know, if you wanted to hold hands so bad, baby, you could have just asked."

"Well, you did make me breakfast."

"Oh, shit! Technically I penetrated you last night! With my needle. I promise, sweetheart, the real deal is a lot thicker."

Using his free hand, Peter smacked his face into his palm. This wasn't the direction he expected this conversation to go. And yet, it really should have been. He should have known neither of them could stick to a real discussion for more than a few consecutive seconds. He looked back at Deadpool, narrowing his eyes. "Sorry, sweetheart," he muttered, voice heavy with sarcasm. "No making promises about your dick while that thing's still on." He released the man's hands to reach up toward the bottom of the mask.

And, Deadpool caught his wrist, squeezing tightly.

He wasn't going to lift the thing off. Not really, anyway. He just wanted to make a point, but his host didn't seem particularly fond of how far he pushed it. Fair enough. He could be a pusher.

"Don't," Deadpool said in that gruff voice that showed he meant business (as opposed to the playful gruff voice before-jesus, he was getting used to differences in rasps). "It's my decision when the mask goes on and off, got it?Leave it."

"Got it. I guess." Peter was quiet for a couple seconds, and then words started coming from his mouth so detached from the rational part of his brain that it was like an out of body experience. "Actually, I don't get it. You didn't feel the need to hide from me this morning. Why now?"

Deadpool's grip on his wrist loosened into something a little more fond and familiar. "Not hiding, baby boy. It ain't about that."

"What is it about then?"

Completely ignoring the question, Deadpool let go of Peter's wrist and held up his previously injured hand. As one could predict, the only thing left of his scratching was a little bit of drying blood. "Look. See? It's already gone."

Peter narrowed his eyes. It was, indeed, gone, but that wasn't what held his attention. When he looked closely it seemed as though patterns of sores and scars were transposed ever so slightly from their previous position. Curious, he grabbed Deadpool's hand and studied it closely. He found that if he stared long enough, he could see small movement in mostly fixed spots. The patterns mimicked each other. It wasn't so much that they were moving but healing and reopening slowly. It created an optical illusion of positional movement.

Huh.

"Weird," Peter said out loud.

"Aww, shucks, honey bunches, you know just what to say to a guy," Deadpool crooned.

And, yeah, okay, Peter laughed at that. Probably way more than was warranted.

Chapter 19

The next day, the first thing Peter did was demand to take a shower and get a new pair of clothes. Admittedly he wasn't the cleanest person in the world, but now that he was feeling a little more comfortable, the funk was beginning to get to him. After his announcement of hygiene needs, he got a black hoodie and grey sweatpants tossed at him, as well as an unbelievably soft towel. He could hear the volume on the TV go up obnoxiously high after closing and locking the bathroom door.

With some reluctance, he started to undress, assessing the state of his body as he did so. There was some minor bruising still on his chest, but it was light and yellow instead of deep purples and reds. The area was still a sensitive to the touch, though, so he didn't want to push his luck too much. Bones knitting back took longer than a few bruises clearing up. The area around his stitches was still a little red. He glared at it, as though that would somehow make his frustration with that part of his own body known. His head didn't hurt nearly as bad, and he wasn't getting dizzy with quick movements anymore, so he took that as a good sign.

After taking stock of everything, he turned on the shower, making sure to adjust the temperature before stepping in.

The shower experience was awkward to say the least. There were a couple of soap choices, and it took him stupidly long to piece together why there wasn't any shampoo. Trying to decide which soap to use was also weirdly anxiety provoking. Then, in a sad attempt to keep his stitches out of the direct spray, he almost slipped and fell on his ass multiple times. Luck and spider-like reflexes were on his side that day in saving his neck, but they still didn't save his pride.

Probably the most awkward part of the whole ordeal was the voice in the back of his head bringing up the fact that he could totally get away with rubbing one out. Between the water spray and way too loud documentary on jellyfish going on in the other room, it was very unlikely he'd be heard. Truth be told, he wasn't really in the mood or anything; he certainly wasn't hard. It was just that he was acutely aware that it had been a while since he'd touched his dick. However, jacking off in Deadpool's shower was not an experience he was quite ready to take ownership of. So, aside from in the context of basic cleaning needs, his dick remained untouched.

The closest he came to injuring himself by almost falling was during his attempt to dry himself off while still standing in the tub. This was, admittedly, not his brightest idea. Frankly, it was a small miracle that he didn't pull out any stitches in his less than graceful save. He did manage to smack his leg against the faucet, though, and he knew that would probably bruise.

On the bright side, he managed to get dressed without any further almost injury to himself.

When he finally left the bathroom, leaving the old clothes in a pile on the floor because he wasn't sure what to do with them, he was greeted by the sight of Deadpool sitting on the floor, wrapped tightly in a comforter and surrounded by a little blanket nest. His back was up against the couch and his arms stuck out of the blanket so he could eat cereal from an alarmingly big cleaned out cottage cheese tub with a plastic serving spoon. Most importantly, at least as far as Peter was concerned, his mask was off.

"The water pressure in your shower is insane," Peter grumbled, making his presence known. Deadpool looked over at him in surprise, the giant spoon hanging from his mouth, before turning down the volume on the tv til it was more or less just a hum of white noise.

"I've been trying to work on that," he said apologetically. "I constantly fear for the safety of my nipples."

"Do your nipples ever just fall off?"

"Okay, wow, rude!" The man flailed carelessly, very nearly creating a spray of milk and cereal. "You can't just ask a guy about the integrity of his nipples!"

"I can, and I did."

"Well just for that," Deadpool pointed at him with the serving spoon, not caring about the drops of milk got on his blanket. "You don't get any of my Fruity Pebbles."

"I'm so wounded," Peter said in the most deadpan voice he could manage. The healing process and trying not to fall in the shower took more out of him than he thought. He sat down on the couch, his legs resting about half an inch away from Deadpool. His head tipped back and rested on the back of the couch, where he got a nice view of the stained and cracked ceiling. To think, just a couple days ago he wanted to take a nap up there. Disgusting. "Learn anything interesting about jellyfish?"

"Yeah, they can shoot off clones of themselves randomly. So basically they're you. Jellyfish-Man."

Instead of dignifying that with a response, Peter put his foot in Deadpool's face. It would be much more effective if this wasn't happening right after he came out of the shower, but he had to work with what he had.

Deadpool pushed it away, laughing in that stupid raspy laugh of his. "Ew. Spider-foot. Squish it."

"No, thanks. I need that foot, thank you very much." Peter tried to suppress a shudder. The nonchalant phrasing reminded him a little too much of the Misery threat. "Aren't there some jellyfish that can live forever? If anything, you're Jellyfish-Man."

Deadpool went on to insist that if that made anyone Jellyfish-Man, it'd be Cable because they lived forever by reverting to a younger state and shooting off more clones. Since Peter knew nothing about the man other than the fact that he existed, he had to concede to the expert on the subject. After that was settled, the fight then moved on to whether or not he would actually be getting any Fruity Pebbles.

Chapter 20

So that day bled into the next. Peter felt considerably better. He was able to lift his arms above shoulder level without feeling as though death was coming swiftly. That was certainly a bonus. His leg was also almost ready to have the stitches removed. Double bonus.

Meanwhile, on the social front, the two managed to go a whole day without things getting too tense between them. Deadpool seemed to avoid the massive attitude shifts after Peter resigned to waiting until he was mostly healed up before leaving. It also gave Peter an opportunity to observe the man a little closer and get more of a feel of what he's like.

During his time there, up until the day before, he'd been either a little too out of it or too preoccupied with more important things to pay much attention to his host's sleeping patterns. If the previous night was an example of the norm, it seemed the man didn't sleep much at all. You see, Peter had stayed up late enough, frankly, for to be considered weird, with his ear pressed to the bedroom door. He listened to the channels on the tv change interspersed with Deadpool's gruff voice giving commentary to no one in particular. Once or twice he almost fell asleep right there on the floor, which would have been very difficult to explain in the morning.

Eventually, he gave in and crawled quietly into bed, following the pattern he had previously mapped out to avoid any floorboard creaks. When he woke up with the sunrise the next morning, Deadpool was already set to work making breakfast with his mask on. This time breakfast was egg in a basket. Either he had something for egg dishes or he kept making them because they were easy dishes to make.

"Goooood morning, sleepy head!" Deadpool greeted, barely looking up from what he was doing. Instead of the radio, this time his ipod was hooked up to a portable speaker. A song Peter vaguely remembered as being by TLC was playing.

"Who even still has ipods anymore?" he grumbled in response. His exhaustion was his own fault, but that fact didn't make him any less grumpy with the existence of mornings.

"Obviously it holds all my music."

"Isn't that what phones are for?"

"Apparently there's a limit on how much space you can take up on your phone, which is complete bullshit, by the way. And I know you're about to say 'But DP! What about cloud services?' Well, my arthropodal friend, I end up in a lotta places where you can't access data, and it's boring as shit."

"I guess that makes sense." Honestly, Peter had a hard time imagining being in an area where data wasn't accessible, but he also almost never left NYC. That had a massive effect on how he viewed the world.

He ran a hand through his hair while he yawned loudly. Staying up was a mistake.

"I'm thirsty," he announced, continuing to be the epitome of a polite guest.

"Water bottles are in the fridge. Don't wanna test your immune system against the city water, especially in this area."

"Tell me about it," Peter grumbled, thinking about the state of the water in his apartment. To be fair, it eventually got (relatively) fixed, but when he first moved in, the water was unambiguously brown. Ah, city life. Sometimes it is, in fact, a movie cliche.

He padded over to the fridge and opened the door. What caught his eye was the fact that the first shelf was filled with several rows of egg cartons piled on top of each other. He raised an eyebrow, looked at Deadpool, and then looked back at the massive stock of eggs. It was like looking in the refrigerators at the grocery store.

Sadly, Deadpool missed his reaction.

"Uhhh, 'Pool?" he asked after clearing his throat unnecessarily. "Expecting a sudden egg shortage? A natural disaster? Aliens are stealing our eggs?"

Deadpool waved the spatula at him. "Aliens stealing our eggs is no laughing matter. I saw a documentary about a lady that got abducted and had her eggs stolen. Scary shit, man." He gave an over exaggerated shudder.

"I'm pretty sure daytime talk shows aren't documentaries."

"Uh, excuse you, it was on the channel formerly known as History. Obviously everything on there has to be real."

"Uh...huh…" Peter's eyebrow had yet to become unraised. He motioned at the open fridge. "That still doesn't answer my question."

"Oh, yeah, that." The man's mask scrunched up in a way that made it look like he was pouting. "I may have… forgotten I already bought eggs, like… Six times? Sixteen times? I have no idea. I just had it stuck in my head that I was out of eggs for a few weeks."

"Yeesh," Peter muttered under his breath, reaching down to the second shelf to grab a water bottle. The fridge as pretty barren aside from the eggs and water. It had a lot of the basic condiments in there, but there were also three opened jars of queso and no ketchup. "Looks like you need to start making lists."

"Please, Spidey. Lists are for the weak and predictable. Opening my fridge is an experience. You never know what you're gonna get!"

"I don't know if that's a good thing." Peter closed the door and scrunched up his nose at the thought. "Don't you leave the country a lot? I bet you come back to a whole ecosystem growing in there."

"Hey, I thought you liked science experiments." Deadpool used his free hand to pull up his mask up enough to stick out his tongue briefly before tugging the fabric back down over his chin. The quick glance at his skin showed that it was particularly red and irritated today, maybe even cracked and bleeding. Peter couldn't fault him for feeling more comfortable with the mask on, and that made him feel a little more at ease about it.

"I'm more of a technological advancement guy. Decomposing food isn't in my repertoire."

"Oooo, repertoire. Good word. I'd rep your toire."

"I don't think that makes sense in any language." He had the overwhelming urge to throw something at the man, but the only thing in his hand was a full bottle of water, and he wasn't sure how well that would go over.

"It makes perfect sense," Deadpool insisted, plopping down a piece of bread for a fifth egg in a basket.

"It does not," Peter whined, distressed by the lack of anything non-threatening enough to throw at him.

He couldn't stop thinking about all those eggs.

Chapter 21

Because he was feeling a little better, Peter started getting antsy. He wanted to leave as soon as possible, but when looking at it with a more level head, he knew it was a better idea to wait til tomorrow. It was iffy how far he'd get with the stitches, and he had no idea how far away from home he currently was, so there was no telling how much strain his ribs would be put under.

Deadpool, on the other hand, was busy boiling a good amount of the eggs in a giant pot and debating loudly with himself about whether he should give some to his neighbors or instead go egging the houses of people he had petty grudges on. Peter couldn't help but feel like that was a microcosm of the man's personality as a whole; he could help people just as easily as he could be a complete asshole. Some part of him realized that this probably applied to him, too, but he liked to think he was more likely to do good in most situations than the mercenary in front of him.

While his host cooked, Peter went channel surfing. It was no surprise that Deadpool had what was certainly the beefiest cable package that money could buy with far too many channels for one person to even try to pick from. How else could he drop pop culture references as easily as he breathed?

With each channel, Deadpool made commentary, and Peter couldn't help but respond.

When Pawn Stars was on, Deadpool commented on a box looking possessed, and they swapped stories on weird possessed items they'd come across on their individual adventures.

When Law and Order was on, Deadpool made fun of the actors viciously while sliding in a comment or two about the justice system, hidden beneath all those personal insults of course. Peter had a hard time appreciating them while distracted by eyebrow jokes.

Chicago was playing on one of those premium channels he never in his life had access to in the comfort of his own home. Deadpool decided to sing and dance along with every song because of course he had the whole thing memorized. Why wouldn't he? Peter almost cried laughing at the amount of times he almost fell down because dancing on a hardwood floor in socks was always an all around terrible idea.

But then, Deadpool got a call. And the mood in the apartment shifted entirely.

Peter muted the TV and watched as the man paced back and forth as he spoke.

"Hello?"

His voice seemed to drop an octave with the potential "business" call. It fit more naturally with the roughness in his throat; when he tried to talk in higher tones his voice was prone to crack and sound painful. Nevertheless, the change in tone still made the hairs on the back of Peter's neck stand on end.

"Who wants to know?"

A pause too long for Peter's liking followed.

"How many zeroes are we looking at?"

Shit. It was a new contact, and that really made Peter uncomfortable. He felt like he was witnessing a crime in process and had no idea how to react. He wasn't Spider-Man right now. He didn't have his webshooters. No mask to hide his fear. His body still injured. What was he supposed to do?

Unexpected yelling started up from the other side of a wall, ripping him from his intense focus on the situation at hand. So apparently Deadpool wasn't the only one with a noise problem…

Speaking of the devil himself, the man seemed utterly oblivious to the apparent altercation. He kept pacing and negotiating the details of... something. Peter couldn't tell if it was a hit or not, and the shouting from the next apartment kept getting louder. Eventually he could tell it was a man and a woman, but he still couldn't make out the words.

Evidently Deadpool reached his limit in ignoring the noise. He mumbled a "Hold on a moment," before pounding on the wall with his fist as hard as he could without putting it through the drywall. "Shut the fuck up, assholes, or we'll get to know each other REAL well!" His response to the neighbors was loud and sudden enough that Peter instinctively jumped to his feet, as though getting ready to be attacked.

The noise immediately lowered to a more reasonable mild irritation instead of a domestic violence call waiting to happen. Deadpool did his best to get off the phone as quickly as possible.

Peter stood there, his fingers curling and uncurling quickly as he tried to process everything that just happened.

Chapter 22

Peter didn't realize he'd been standing there, staring, for an uncomfortable amount of time until Deadpool waved his hand in front of his face.

"You okay, there, Spidey?"

He grabbed Deadpool's wrist to still the hand's movement. His fingers seemed to squeeze a little too tight of their own accord. Everything felt so far out of his control that even his body wasn't waiting for direction. If there was anything that messed him up the most, it was feeling out of control of a situation… of himself… It all seemed to be piling up so fast.

"What was that?" He squeezed a little tighter when Deadpool tried to flex his fingers. They curled into a fist in response. The man's shoulders tensed a little bit, readying for a potential altercation. In Peter's mind, that was the first sign of aggression, as though his own actions weren't.

"What was what? The Johnsons next door were getting a little too loud. Wouldn't want them waking up Junior, would we?"

"What?" Peter blinked a couple of times, and let go of Deadpool's wrist mostly so that he could gesticulate wildly. "Not that! The call!"

"Sorry, sweetie-pie. Didn't know taking work calls during 'us time' would piss you off so much." The pet name that usually fell so easily from his lips was forced out like a pejorative. Irritable sarcasm fit him a little too well. It was a well-worn tool of the trade. "I'll silence my phone if it'll make you feel a little better, sugar-bee, but I might miss something important."

"Did you really just accept a job right in front of me? Did you really think I'd be okay with that?" Peter ran a hand through his hair, his eyes wide and darting around the room. Part of him just wanted punch the man out just to get him to shut up. He was very talented at saying just the right thing to make everything worse.

"I didn't accept it. I said I'd consider it. And I'm pretty sure it's none of your goddamn business what I do and don't accept, so sit your pretty ass down and keep your nose where it belongs."

"Ooo. Trying to intimidate me again. Real original speech there, Deadpool." Once again, his fingers furled and unfurled with an uncomfortable energy that he didn't know how to release. Maybe he was just trying to start a fight at this point. It would feel good to have that kind of release after everything that had been building up. "It is my business if people are going to get hurt because of it."

"Awww, Webs," Deadpool cooed. For an added layer of condescension, he bent forward slightly so that they'd be on eye level. "You're doing a cute little hero speech thing, even though you're all banged up still. Sittin' on the couch, watchin' TV with a known killer. But we're good. That's all chill. Then you get all sore when a job for said known killer comes up while you're in the room. Puffin' yourself up like an angry bird even though we all know you'd be dead if it hadn't been for a job I took. You're adorable, Spider-Babe. Really. Hypocrisy looks so good on you." He reached over and ruffled Peter's hair.

Peter grabbed his wrist with a purposefully tight grip. "Stop it." The words came out from between gritted teeth.

"Stop what? What're you gonna do, kiddo? You let yourself get bullied into being a good little boy so far. Maybe without the mask, you're less a hero of the streets and more just a scared kid."

And that was just the right thing to say to flip some kind of switch in Peter. He was frustrated, tired, and not emotionally prepared for this kind of bullshit tirade. So, he did the first thing instinct told him to do. He grabbed Deadpool's forearm with his free hand and easily flipped him over with the intention of making him land hard on his back.

Two things happened to upset this. One, Deadpool was caught off guard. In most fights he'd be able to adjust quickly so that he'd land safely. For whatever reason, he didn't react quickly enough.

Two, Peter wasn't thinking about the size of the room. There wasn't actually enough room for him to land entirely on the floor. The whole thing was made worse by the fact that he wasn't thinking about the force in which he threw him down.

Everything happened in the fastest second Peter had ever experienced in his life.

Deadpool's lower body hit the couch, while the upper half of his body continued to be slammed into the floor. Specifically, it caused his head to land at an awful angle.

A familiar sickening crack echoed throughout the room.

Deadpool's body slumped down so that he was fully on the floor, where it remained, motionless.

Peter jumped back and buried his fingers in his hair. His breaths came in quick, shallow puffs. Suddenly all his frustration was converted to a deep, bone chilling panic.

Chapter 23

The whole room seemed utterly devoid of noise for a long time. After getting himself to stop hyperventilating, a heavy numbness settled over Peter. He couldn't stop looking at the corpse and wondering how long it would take for it to reanimate. He was frozen, stuck in that oppressive silence.

The next noise he registered hearing was the eggs overboiling. He could hear the water hissing as it was rapidly converted to steam. The shock of that seemed to pull him back into the world around him. He jumped and rushed over to the stove, quickly shutting off the burner. He found Deadpool's oven mitts and slipped them on. Carefully, he moved the enormous pot to a cool burner.

After that, he went to the bathroom to get a towel, which he used to clean up the water that managed to spill over the stovetop and onto the floor. He folded the towel neatly and placed it over the handle on the oven door.

Peter needed to take a minute to mentally prepare himself before going back over by Deadpool. He muttered things under his breath like "you can do this, Parker" and "it's just a temporary thing for him anyway." That didn't really do anything to make him feel any better, but he knew he had to bite the bullet, so to speak, and just get it over with.

He walked back over to the corpse with slow unease. A considerable amount of effort had to be put into not holding his breath, but somehow he managed to keep breathing.

Deadpool, on the other hand, still wasn't breathing yet.

When this seemed to continue for a while, Peter thought that maybe it was because of the angle he was still in. That couldn't be conducive to healing. Maybe his neck needed to be straightened so that he could heal properly.

So, with very little effort, Peter picked up Deadpool's literally dead weight and placed him on the couch. Making sure that the neck was straight was admittedly disgusting. He could hear little clicks of bones rubbing against each other. He did all that he could do to try to put the man in a comfortable position, and then he sat down in the recliner on the other side of the couch.

He stayed very still, on the edge of his seat. He watched for any sign of movement, of air filling the chest cavity so devoid of life.

But nothing happened.

How long was this supposed to take? When he thought of it, he was sure that he had seen Deadpool bounce back faster than this in the heat of battle. Was something going wrong? It would be just his luck that the time it was his fault would be the time that Deadpool died for good.

He was just starting to feel panic seeping back in, when the body convulsed with a sharp, desperate inhale. Deadpool's fingers clawed at his mask, tugging the fabric off violently so that it would stop restricting his air supply.

Peter jumped at the sudden movement, his heart beating rapidly. He couldn't help it. He felt a nervous giggle escape his lips. Fuck, his head hurt, but he had never before felt more relieved.