Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, nor am I affiliated with them in any way. All characters (aside from Nev) are not of my creation, and I have no rights to them.
The chapter title is a mild variant of a line in the Tool song Vicarious. I am not affiliated with the band in any way and hold no rights to the song.


"Well done, as usual. For someone who claims to be lousy at math, you can crack algorithms like it's nothing," Maria is telling Nev. She's staring very hard at the computer screen in front of her, using something that resembles a plug in micro keyboard.

"It's just a pattern, patterns are easy." She's really focusing on this. She doesn't notice when I step up behind her and watch over her shoulder. Green numbers are flashing across the black screen. Maria looks up at me.

"This scenario involves a password that evolves based on an algorithm. The idea of this exercise is to get as much information as possible within five minutes with the cleanest hack," Nev says. "The information relocks itself every few seconds and requires rehacking, since the password has reset."

"None of that sounded English," I tell her. She sighs at me, but smiles. I take a chair from a table in the corner and sit behind them. I do want to watch even if the specifics are confusing. A count-down clock is showing what time she has left. 0:0:48, 0:0:47… Nev looks pleased when the clock stops her.

"Best yet, 79% with only 16% chance of being recognized as a foreign entity," she says looking over her shoulder at me.

"Still kinda gibberish, but that's really good probably," I tell her supportively. A very unwelcome red and blue clad intruder appears in the full-glass door.

Oh God, he's here to try to be emotional with you.

"Shoo. We're working here," I say, giving Peter a dismissive hand gesture. He stands next to me, looking at Nev's screen.

"Training as a hacker huh? Whoa, you beat our last guy's score by a mile," he says, getting a better look at what she's doing.

"If you're here to play suck up, the part's been filled. Go away," I say irritably. A new problem pops up, and Nev's posture changes.

"I was afraid of this one. I'm balls at this," she mumbles.

"You won't be with proper training," Maria insists. It's a rotating shape, looks like it has twenty sides, maybe more, and text off to the left of the shape. Each side has a different shape on it. Nev's staring at it, but not moving to try to answer it. There's no timer on this one. She does finally put in a response and the shape stops moving. It's showing one side and four lines of text.

"Let's go, you don't even know what you're looking at," Peter says to me.

"Nuh uh. I'm off today. I have plans to start putting up a wall paper made of cranes in this room," I argue.

"I didn't say fight, I said to come with me," he insists. "You can follow me around and do absolutely nothing."

"I don't want your guidance counselor speeches today. I'm in a surprisingly good mood," I say trying to shoo him off again.

"I'll split my pay with you."

No he won't, he'll use it to buy you a self-help book and claim that mending your feelings is the best pay ever.

"I'll also buy you lunch."

"Only if it's that Mexican place a few blocks over," I challenge.

"Done. Let's go," he says, making for the door. I take a final look at Nev, but she's concentrating too hard to notice I'm leaving. "So are you two playing house nicely?" he asks as we leave the building.

Was that euphemism for sex?

"I wouldn't make sexual passes at her," I say, giving Peter a look he can't see because masks block that stuff.

"I never… You know what, you're really hard to talk to," he says, sighing.

"Where are we going?"

"Kill a guy, get some money back from him. I don't know more than that, it's being treated like it's some great national secret," he says. "Honestly I think they're just embarrassed it happened."

"I kissed her," I blurt out. I keep walking. Peter doesn't.

"Wait, you- Wade, you can't- What if Fury finds out?!" he stammers. I stop and turn to him.

"Are you gonna tell him?" I ask.

"Well, no but you know he has way of finding everything out! You'll get fired!" he says, almost frantically.

"How much money did this guy steal? You can't just walk into SHIELD and leave with armfuls of cash… Can you? Have I been missing an opportunity here?" I say thoughtfully.

"Wade!"

"Was it only one armful then?" I ask. He shakes his head and starts walking again.

"You just got done saying you weren't making passes at her," he says. "I'd say kissing her is a pretty big lead in."

"It was cold, so I offered to share the bed with her. In hindsight, I still don't feel like I did the wrong thing. Kinda did at first. But it went well," I say, turning the events over in my head again.

"How'd you end up kissing her? Do I want to know?"

"We woke up in a slightly compromising position. Don't worry, I wasn't naked," I assure him. He shudders. "And when she took off my mask, she didn't do that."

"Moving a little fast there, and with Fury's kid," he warns. I nod.

"I already thought through all of that. I know I'm not really over…" I can't say her name. Not out loud. "And I'm gonna wager that sticking me in a nut house didn't really help any of that." I look at Peter, his head is down. He's always been pretty ashamed of that even though he wasn't part of it. He even argued against it.

That's why he's so nice to you! Guilt! I wonder how long you can play that card. I'll file it away. For later.

"I almost killed you when I broke out. I don't even remember what you said that stopped me," I admit. Peter doesn't say anything.

"You've been awfully subdued lately," he says finally.

Oh no, look what you started. You're bringing out the feels again.

"You're a lot better today than you have been. I hope it's not because you've been killing more in the past week than you have in the last two months," he says sharply.

"Partly. But, THINGS. And STUFF," I say, not without taking a moment to enjoy his obvious displeasure with the joy I take from killing.

"The things and stuff are a little taboo," he says. He grabs my arm and yanks me around a building. "That's the guy. Blue suit with grey tennis shoes, briefcase. Before you get all gun crazy, we can get him alive if we-" Nope. I burst out from behind the building.

"HEY!" It gets his attention, and the attention of several others. "Didn't anyone tell you stealing is wrong? And that there are people willing to make you feel very sorry about doing it?" The guy sprints off ducks into an alley before I can grab a gun and shoot.

"Great, now he's going to get away," Peter sighs as he runs after the guy with me.

"You told me not to kill him," I point out.

"Do I really have to say 'don't let him get away' too?" he rants.

"He's not going to get away," I promise. There he is. Cornered. I ready my gun. "Look man. Nothing personal. You took money that SHIELD could be using to pay me. They pay my electric bill with it instead so I guess it's a wash. Genius, by the way, rob a place with your running shoes on."

"There's no cash in here, just- Just papers!" the guy stammers out.

"Just give it back, we don't want to kill you," Peter says. "We'll take you in, we have to, but-"

"If you do that, the boss'll kill me!" the man yells. So I shoot. He slumps over, very dead.

"WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!" Peter screams, both hands on his head. I look at him, then at my gun.

"I saved his boss some trouble. You don't even know who that is but he has a list of offenses longer than mine," I tell him.

"Like what?!" He still seems pretty traumatised by the body before us. I hoist it over my shoulder and get the case with my other hand.

"Black Market shit. He's stolen a lot of stuff from SHIELD and all its little subsets. Did you know SHIELD has more than one division? Multiple divisions with multiple subsets, like some mega ant colony."

"How do you know this stuff? About him?" he asks. He's following me back to SHIELD but keeping his distance.

"Sometimes, Fury leaves papers on his desk with the door wide open. How am I supposed to resist?"

"You have any idea what they're going to do to you if you walk in with a body?" he asks, starting to calm down.

"Probably give you… No, you don't kill. No, I have no idea," I answer. "But we're about to find out!"


"Uh, I just killed this guy and handled a theft recovery," I say to the receptionist. She doesn't turn to look at me.

"It's you. Go see Fury about it, then," she says with a disgusted sigh.

"We have a-"

"Take it to Fury, Parker. What I said applies to you too." She still won't look at us. The security that normally seems to wait for me is too busy taking care of a Hulk-related incident, so we just strolled in. And now we're just strolling onto an elevator. Peter's staring at me holding the body.

"I can't believe I'm friends with you," he says finally.

"Me either, but that's ok. Except you chase my brain away, it kinda shuts up when you're here," I say.

"You're really nuts aren't you," he asks me, not unkindly. "What are you going to do, drop the body on his floor?"

"I hadn't got that far yet, but yeah, probably," I say with no concern on what happens. Fury is in his office and actually jumps up to greet us.

Aww, look how grateful he is! He wants to thank you right away!

"What is this?" he roars at us. Peter shrinks back, but I just drop the body at his feet and hold the briefcase out.

"Got the money back. Is there enough in here that I can have half as a reward?" I ask.

Wait, he said there were just documents in here. Damnit.

"Why did you bring the fuckin' BODY here?" Fury snaps at me.

"Well. Disneyland seemed too far away. I shoulda held onto him for a while so I could use the car pool lane though. And on the bright side, he isn't in Bruce's heater duct," I tell him as I watch him start shaking with anger. "Look, I did the job on my day off, you should be thanking me."

"I'm sorry, I asked him to go with me, I should know better," Peter interrupts quickly. Fury buries his face in his hands.

"S'fine. I'll have someone clean this up. I'll have checks for you both tomorrow morning. The clean up cost is coming from your pay, Wade," he says, trying to stay calm.

Don't argue, they pay your electric bill. Did Peter hear that? Did he already know?

"I'll get him out of here before he causes you any more grief," Peter says, trying to steer me back towards the elevator. "C'mon, I promised you lunch. We need to let Fury chill out anyway."

"Am I still getting part of your pay?" I ask.

"You're getting your own pay, absolutely not!"


"So, you just let her pull it off?" Peter's still trying to process what I'm telling him. We're stashed away in a back corner with our masks up just enough to eat.

"Well, I'd already kissed her at that point. Honestly I'm just tired of having to get all suited up every time I need to make a pee-dash in the middle of the night. The two or three whole nights she's been there," I say. "But it's ok, she wants to see who she's living with, who she was in bed with."

"Last part of that is enough to get you in trouble," he warns again. "Seriously, if Fury gets wind of this, you'll be very gone."

"I'll risk it," I tell him after a long silence.

"Wade, do you have any idea what the hell you're doing?" he presses. I shake my head.

"But I didn't before, and that's something you need to remember. If I hadn't been an idiot, I mean, she said she'd help me through it-" My eyes start to burn and I cut myself off. "Coulda been different," I finish quickly.

"Did you tell Nev?"

"Kinda. Told her I didn't want to talk about it. It was my fault and I don't want Nev thinking I'd get her wrapped up in any of that kind of danger. Did you bring me here to depress me?" I shoot back. He holds his hands up.

"Sorry, just seems a little weird on the outside looking in," he says. I look down at the table.

"It's weird on the inside looking around," I admit. Awkward silence. He starts laughing quietly. "What?"

"Does SHIELD really pay your electric bill? How'd you do that?"

HA. He DIDN'T know. It's a funny story, tell it!

"Well, when I went to get my electricity turned on, I used SHIELD's address and some made up name for the billing info, something like John Johnson or something stupid. They've been paying the bill for 6 years," I tell him, smiling.

Damn you're slick.

"You're crazy. I can't believe they haven't noticed. Do they pay anything else? Cable?" he presses, still grinning.

"Nah, I spliced into the cable. I know the cable people have noticed but they don't care. And the water bill is barely twenty so I just pay that," I explain. I stop when I see the server coming our way. Peter starts up as soon as he's gone.

"Could have Nev hack some extra TV channels for you," he suggests.

"Yeah, we thought that would be pushing it though," I say. "But I haven't let go of that thought."

"One more thing?" Peter says. I've already started stuffing my face. "I know you're excited, and I don't blame ya, but try to be discreet as long as you can."