Now Don't Get All Broken Up

Peter's head is killing him.

Well, actually that's an understatement, because he feels like he's hurting from every inch of his being.

And honestly, he thought he'd been dead; could've sworn he had finally kicked the bucket and gone to that big spider web in the sky. He could hardly remember why, much less what had happened to leave him alive and kicking when he probably should've been dead. Whoever or whatever had saved him had his thanks though, just not at the moment; he was aching all over.

He makes a sound like a pained whimper, tries to pry his eyes open but finds them stuck together with dried blood and sleep. Consciousness comes flooding back as though its being dropped back into Peter's body all at once. Peter groans and tries again to open his eyes, finding it a much more successful attempt this time, and almost immediately closes them again against the bright white light of…

Wherever he is.

So, the Rhino.

Peter couldn't really help the eyeroll that came hard when he swung into action against the belligerent supervillain. It seemed like the universe was conspiring against him getting any rest –hell, he'd been going almost nonstop for days, weeks almost. Between school, work and being Spiderman, Peter hadn't really found time for sleep or rest. It was almost like he was the posterchild for the phrase 'I'll sleep when I'm dead'.

While he preferred not to be dead, it seemed like that was the only way he was going to get any reprieve from his daily routine. Until the Rhino attack.

For a man as big as the Rhino was, he wasn't exactly the fastest villain Spiderman had ever faced. That said, today, it seemed like he was running circles around Peter, figuratively of course. And was it just him, or was the Rhino actually a lot more feral today? Most of Spiderman's villains would at least respond to his quips with a jab of their own, the Rhino included, but today, he was very…quiet.

Sure he was running straight through whole buildings and tearing up everything in sight with a bellowing cry, but he wasn't speaking at all. It was like he had truly become an animal instead of a man in a rhino costume, making incoherent grunts and shrieks. Peter would have to look into that later. Maybe the Rhino was just having a bad day?

He wasn't even fighting, really, just destroying the city. Peter wondered, after a close shave with a flying mailbox, if the Rhino really even saw him at all, or if he was only laying waste to the city for shits and giggles without the giggles. His attention never stayed on the webslinger for more than a moment's notice before he was destroying some building or knocking over a car in the street. It was almost as if Spiderman were no more than a pesky fly, not worth the Rhino's time.

Either way, the Rhino needed to be stopped, and Peter had been doing just that, until one well-placed flying lamp post sends him hurtling towards the ground. He manages to catch himself at the last minute, slinging a web that catches him hard enough to pull his arm nearly out of its socket, but he knows he's already messed up. It was too late to change courses now; all Peter could do was twist his body and hope-

Consciousness hits Peter in groggy intervals.

His head hurts, and it feels like he's been hit by a truck. A very angry truck dressed in a rhinoceros costume. He has no idea how long he sits there and stares at the ceiling, breathing hard and in tight wisps, trying to gather his bearings and stop the room from spinning. Eventually, he tries to sit up, only to realize he has no idea where he is.

Great. He has no idea where he is or what happened to him and-

Oh, shit. His mask.

Peter quickly reaches up, fumbling with unsteady hands at his throat, searching for the end of his mask. When he finds it, he breathes a deep sigh of relief to find the mask tightly in place where it should be over his face. His costume is gone from the waist up, so that's odd.

Peter turns his head to the left, unexpectedly finds a coffee table staring him in the face. It's cluttered and reminds Peter of his desk back at home, but instead of textbooks and miscellaneous tech covering its surface, he finds it stacked precariously with comic books, empty taco wrappers, knives and random weapons, some of which look like they've been used already.

That fact alone makes Peter wonder, through the fogginess of his exhausted mind, had some of them been used on him? Where even was he? Had he been kidnapped?

All he knew was that this day could've gone better.

Unconsciously, he shivers. Without the top half of his costume, he feels the slight chill of an air conditioner somewhere in the room. Turning his head to the right, he's met with the sight of couch cushions.

He's on someone's couch. Okay.

With some struggling, Peter sits up against the arm rest, groaning at the ache in his body as he urges it to move. His muscles scream at him in protest and his chest burns with the all too familiar ache of a semi-healing wound, the skin stretching and opening slightly against the resistance. Looking down at himself, he freezes in momentary shock. Across his abdomen, thick, raised and red, is a scar about nine feet long that wasn't there before.

It's slightly to the left of his spine, just under his ribcage, stretching vertical from his pelvis to the tip of his sternum. Running the tips of his fingers across it, Peter finds it almost already healed. It's still tender, a sign of freshness, newness. He doesn't remember what happened; how did he get this? Aside from the usual inventory of cuts and bruises that came with crimefighting, this is the only wound that looks like it could've killed him.

Out of curiosity, Peter reaches around to his back, runs his hand across the bare expanse of skin and stops on a healing stretch of scar below his ribs. It matches up almost perfectly with the scar along his torso so well that for a moment, Peter can't breathe.

Had he been impaled by something?

And then it hits him hard. He remembers.

Fighting the Rhino, narrowly avoiding getting his skull smashed in by a flying lamp post, then falling. Falling, falling, and then nothing. That's where things get fuzzy.

Still, despite that, how was he not dead? He'd been lucky to miss any damage to his vital organs from the looks of the scars' position, but by all accounts, he should've bled out on the pavement. he should've been dead.

But someone had saved him. Who would…

Peter looks up at the ceiling again, trying to think. The taco wrappers. The table full of clutter and weapons. And the faint smell of something organic…roadkill? Decay? Whatever it was it was gross…

Oh no.

"Well, it looks like someone's finally awake!"

Peter can't help but wince at the unusually chipper voice that pierces the quiet of the room. Oh no, indeed. He chances a look beyond the couch at what is apparently the front door of an apartment to find a familiar red costumed figure staring back at him. He can practically hear the smile behind his mask, as Deadpool holds up two paper bags in his hands, kicking the door closed behind him.

"Now," he says cheerfully, "who wants chimichangas?"

Peter thinks he might've rather taken his chances with being dead.

"Now," says Deadpool cheerfully, setting the bag down on the coffee table and seriously invading Peter's personal space, "who wants chimichangas?"

Peter groans. "Um, no thanks." It wasn't him being rude, it was just that he didn't think he could stomach food at the moment; not after all these revelations. Deadpool, of all people, had been the one to save him? Why? How?

"What happened to me?" Peter asks. "How long was I out?"

Deadpool straightens up and throws his arms out wide. "I saved your life!" he says, completing the grandiose gesture with a show of jazz hands. Peter might've found the sight endearing if he wasn't so repelled by Deadpool in general. "How cool is that?" Deadpool is saying. He's rifling through the bag now, pulls out a wrapped chimichanga and plops down on the couch next to Peter to eat it. "It took me a while to get you all patched up; you were bleeding all over the place and I had to make sure you didn't have any entrails hangin' out-"

"Yeah, okay," interrupts Peter, "but what happened to me? And where am I?"

"Oh yeah," says Deadpool offhandedly, leaning back on the couch and throwing his legs rather carelessly onto the surface of the already cluttered coffee table. "You're at my place. Welcome to mi casa, compadre." He inspects the chimichanga, turning his head this way and that. "And as for what happened to you, well…you sure you don't wanna eat first?"

"Um, no, really," says Peter. "Just tell me what happened."

"Welp," says Deadpool, now holding the chimichanga up to the light, "I just so happened to be in the area, just bein' a model citizen an' all," which Peter doesn't believe for a second, "and I happened to hear the commotion you and that dickhead in the rhino costume were making. Seriously, though: a rhino? How unimaginative is that?"

"Anyway," Deadpool continues, and he still hasn't eaten his chimichanga, "I was just stepping onto the scene when I saw you get gored by that weirdo's horns. There's a sex joke there, but it's a little too soon for that, don't you think?"

Peter rolls his eyes until he remembers that Deadpool can't see him under the mask. "Then what?"

"Well then he tossed you into the window of this little café, and he was probably gonna finish you off until I put a bullet in his head. Ba-bam!"

"Wait," says Peter holding up a hand, "You did what?"

"I'm just kidding. I shot him with an elephant tranquilizer. It was awesome."

"What? Where on earth did you find one of those?"

Deadpool shrugs. "It was just lyin' around." And says nothing more on the subject. "Anyway, that's the story of how I saved your life. You're welcome."

"But that doesn't explain why I'm not dead," Peter persists. "How did you do that? And why save me?"

"Well, you were bleeding out something crazy, so I figured I'd just put some back into you. And bam, problem solved," says Deadpool easily, as if it's the most simple thing in the world to perform a blood transfusion.

"Okay, but how did you do it?"

"You're smart, Spider-brains. You know how a blood transfusion works."

He's just dodging the question now, Peter realizes, and narrows his eyes. "Deadpool," he says. And it occurs to him that he hadn't woken up in a hospital. That must've meant that Deadpool had been with him since the fight with Rhino. "Whose blood did you use?"

Deadpool suddenly goes very still. The chimichanga sits uneaten in his lap, and the mercenary seems to shrink in on himself like a small child being chastised. He plays with his fingers, staring hard at the floor through his mask and clears his throat. "Ah, um, well…I may have used…"

"Yeah?" Peter coaxes him urgently. He does not like where this is going.

"Well, there was no one there to donate any red stuff," starts Deadpool, still playing with his finger, "and I didn't know your blood type…so I may or may not have given you some of…mine."