Peter had never felt so useless in his entire life than he did standing on the landing pad watching the Quinjet leave with Iron Man, Falcon, Hawkeye, Black Widow and a bunch of junior heroes he'd never even heard of-who all apparently knew him. (Nova? The fuck?). They were following a lead on the location of the still missing Captain America, Wolverine, and Thor, but would tell Peter nothing else.

His memory was still gone for the most part, though he did remember becoming Spiderman. He also remembered Uncle Ben and Gwen's death. He remembered mourning for them, and that pain was still very near to the surface now.

And he remembered Deadpool. He remembered being ripped from the back of a car and thrown over the side of the Brooklyn Bridge. What he absolutely could not fathom was the idea of falling in love with such a lunatic. May insisted that they were, in fact, in love. Knowing that Wade had spent time at his home with his Aunt-even apparently doing things like shopping with her without his supervision-was almost appalling.

With his memory as faulty as it was, Peter often entertained the thought that they were messing with him. Tony Stark was a notorious figure in his mind, known for weapons manufacturing rather than as a hero. Surely he made it up, right?

"As much as I'd like to pretend that your relationship with that psychopath is all an illusion, it's not," is what Stark said. Followed by a heavy sigh and a frown, and finally, "You love him. And it's confusing and weird, but to be honest, I'm almost jealous."

Peter had balked at that. "Jealous? Of Deadpool?"

"Yeah," he said, shrugging. "He's completely devoted to you, and you were very happy with him. I've never been happy with anyone, Parker. Not even myself."

And that was the end of the subject. Tony left Peter's room, and Peter spent the next couple hours trying to force his mind to remember. Because there was a picture, just one. It was taken by Aunt May last year at Thanksgiving. The two of them are sitting close, looking at each other with complete adoration. May said it was the only picture she had of the two of them together because Wade hates having his picture taken.

Her reactions were the strangest. How could she like someone like that? Even after Peter had angrily shouted, "He's a mercenary, Aunt May! He. Kills. People. For. Money. He's a psychopath. He's insane. He has voices in his head. And did I mention he's a murderer?"

May just shook her head, and said, "When you get your memory back, you're going to feel like an asshole for saying such things."

"It's true," Peter insisted.

That was when May laid down the ultimate bombshell. She said, "I know, Peter. I've known since I first met him. I recognized him from when he was on TV with Nathan Summers in Providence. It was big news a while back when the two of them divorced. Doesn't take a genius to put together that Wade Wilson is Deadpool, since the two were always together and Summers really liked to be on camera."

"And you're fine with that? You've always been fine with that?" Peter asked.

"Yes," she answered sternly. She smiled, and said, "I'm not going to say that he's perfect, but he has a good heart. And honestly, the way you talk about him, I have no idea how you two really managed to fall in love with each other."

Peter shook his head, and said, "There's something I can at least agree with."

Now, alone on the landing zone, Peter wished that someone could make sense to him. Anyone. There were things that hinted that they were telling the truth, like Peter's dreams of a scarred man, and the way he always woke up reaching for someone who wasn't there. But...Deadpool?

He thought about Gwen. Beautiful, brave Gwen, and had to wonder how shitty his life had to have become to settle for someone like Wade Wilson.

Peter was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he didn't hear the doors open nor realize that there was someone standing behind him until he turned around and flinched coming face to face with a long-haired man with a metal arm.

"I need your help," he said by way of introduction.

Peter took a step back. "Uh, who are you?"

"My name's James Barnes, but most call me Bucky." His words were curled by a subtle accent that twisted his English. Like he'd spent a long time abroad. He looked out towards the city, and said, "I've received some intelligence from a trusted source, but the Avengers refused to act on it. They don't trust me. But I'm not going to stay here in the Tower while my best friend is being held captive or killed."

"Why don't they trust you?" Peter asked hesitantly.

"The same reason they don't trust you," he answered. "My mind has been tampered with."

Peter nodded, knowing the annoyance. "Okay, so what do you propose?"

"You're Spiderman. You travel around the city using buildings. I need you to take me to a place called Hayden Cleaners in Queens." Then Bucky reached into a pouch on his vest, producing Peter's web shooters. "We need to leave now. We have approximately one minute before the security system comes back online."

Peter's eyebrows shot up. "You disabled the security system of Avengers Tower?"

"45 seconds," was his response.

"I don't have my costume. My mask-"

Bucky handed him a black mask and said, "This will work for now. Thirty seconds."

Peter shrugged and pulled the mask over his face, slipped the shooters on his wrist and grabbed Bucky, and said, "Geronimo."

Then they were off swinging through the city. Peter knew his way across town. It was clear in his head exactly which buildings were around the corner, which turns to make, which way guaranteed the quickest route to Queens, where he grew up. This city was in his blood, and as he swung he couldn't help but have vague memories of someone else hanging onto his back while swinging across town.

Bucky directed him to a building, and to a window that was rigged to be opened from the outside. Peter expected to see an office, but they stepped into a bedroom. The bed was neatly made, and his eyes settled on the nightstand that was topped by a Spiderman alarm clock with a tube of lube sitting beside it. There were clothes in a basket, including a red and black corset that lay on top. A pair of large high heels were sitting at the end of the bed.

Peter had an odd feeling that he should recognize this room. He looked at Bucky and said, "Where are we?"

"Your apartment," he answered. "I figured you'd have equipment you'd like to pick up."

"My…" He trailed off, his eyes settling on a picture on the wall. It was a neatly matted and framed cityscape, taken from the side of the Empire State building. He remembered it, because he took the picture and won a photography contest with it. He squinted around the room, and said, "This is my apartment?"

Peter walked to the closet and opened the door to find it full of clothes, both his and another mans. Maybe a womans, too, because of the abundance of dresses hanging to one end of the bar. Lots of red and black. Then he pushed the clothing aside, and noticed a seam in the wall. It took a moment to figure out the mechanism, but after feeling around he found a neatly disguised latch, and the seam opened to reveal what Peter could only call an arsenal.

There were so many guns, ranging from small handguns to assault rifles. Also knives and swords, brass knuckles that said "DEAD" on one and "POOL" on the other. There were also suits. Several were Deadpool's, but a lot of them were Spiderman's.

Peter stepped back and looked at Bucky. Confused, he said, "We really live together?"

Bucky nodded. "Yeah. You do. Now get your gear. Time's wasting."

"Just wait," Peter said, noticing something down in the bottom of the hidden area. It was a single-subject notebook with a piece of masking tape on the cover that said "Wade W". It was worn, obviously something that the merc had handled often. Peter sat on the end of the bed and opened the cover and saw that it was full of drawings, mostly doodles in black ink. It was very cartoonish, depicting Deadpool doing various things-scaling buildings, fighting ninjas, throwing around what looked like symbiote dinosaurs. As Peter flipped the pages, he realized that he was included in several of them, and featured more and more prominently as he made his way towards the back of the book. The last few drawings were of Deadpool holding Spiderman's hand, or the two kissing in an alley over someone webbed into a cocoon.

The very last drawing was of them leaning against each other, sitting on the edge of a building. There was a series of things written above Deadpool's head that had all been crossed out. Why does he love me? Is this really happening? I hope this is really happening. I love you, Spidey.

Then above Spidey's head was a speech bubble that said, "Stop thinking. I love you, Wade." Those words were written in Peter's handwriting. There was a vague memory that popped into Peter's head, more of a feeling than a memory, of taking the pen from Wade's hand and writing the words after watching the merc write and cross out each line. He tried to hold onto that memory, but it faded the harder he tried to cling.

Bucky was looking at him, and that was when Peter realized that he had tears running down his face. He wiped them away and said, "I don't understand."

"Part of you remembers," Bucky said softly. "That part is missing someone you can't remember. It's like seeing a ghost, but a ghost of yourself."

Peter looked back at the drawing. Stop thinking. I love you, Wade.

He closed the book and went back to the closet to grab his costume. Bucky was right. Time was wasting.

Hayden Cleaners was only a few blocks away from the apartment. Peter landed softly on the roof and cocked his head, and asked, "Why would you need to come here? Do you have a secret army of maids?"

Bucky gave him a funny look, and said, "This is a front. Come on."

They walked to the roof door, and Bucky unlocked it with a code. Three floors down, they encountered their first person. A sort of lanky fellow with blond hair. His face split in a smile, and he gasped, "Mr. Parker! I'm so happy to see you."

That made Peter raise an eyebrow. "Who are you?"

The man's eyes went wide. "So it's true! I figured Tony was lying about the whole memory thing."

"Tony Stark?" Peter asked.

"No. Tony Masters." He held out his hand, and said, "I'm Bob. We actually know each other."

Peter shook his hand reluctantly, then followed Bob and Bucky down a couple more flights of stairs to a meeting room where there were several more people waiting. Some of them Peter actually recognized, like Tony Masters, who Peter knew better as Task Master. There was another in the room who looked a lot like Wade, except for not as scarred. Or at least, differently scarred. And just about everyone knew Crazy Inez, otherwise known as Outlaw.

Mercenaries. It was a room full of mercenaries. Peter was in a room full of mercenaries, and they all knew him by his first name and seemed to know that he was Spiderman. This was not a turn of events that he was prepared for. Not at all. But it was Bucky who brought him here, and he looked at his travelling companion.

"What are we doing here?" Peter asked in a hushed tone.

Bucky gave him a narrow-eyed look and walked over to Tony Masters. It was Bob who answered the question. "When you guys went to the Jean Grey School, Wanda asked me to stay here to keep tabs on your movements in case anything strange happened."

"Wanda?" Peter asked, getting more confused.

"Wade's sort of twin sister," Bob answered. Then he continued, "Anyway, Wanda and Wade both have a tracking device on them, something they wanted after they were kidnapped the first time. The first night you were gone, the signals suddenly jumped to a location in a remote location in Canada. After some recon, we determined that the location a base, potentially a former part of the Weapon X program."

Peter tried to absorb all of this, and said, "Weapon X? Like… Like Wolverine?"

Bob nodded. "Yes, Mr. Parker. Now, we tried to relay this information to the Avengers, but no one was taking our calls."

"So how did Bucky…" Peter asked.

Tony Masters answered, "I'm his Accountabil-a-buddy."

Peter shook his head. "His what?"

"It's part of Steve Roger's program to reform us villainous types," Masters answered. "We all have someone who's going through the same stuff that we can call when we're having trouble or feeling the urge to go back to our old ways. Bucky is my buddy. And I sent him a message to let him know what I know. Now you're here." He smirked and said, "As Wade would say, is that enough exposition?"

Peter looked at Bucky, and said, "I thought you said the Avengers didn't trust you because you had your memory tampered with?"

Bucky nodded. "Yeah. By HYDRA. I was an assassin for 75 years. They called me the Winter Soldier."

Peter's jaw went slack. "You were a HYDRA agent?"

"So was Bob," Bucky answered.

Masters said, "We're leaving in five minutes. Are you in?"

Peter laughed, and said, "Might as well, right?"

A few minutes later, as they were boarding Task Master's private stealth jet, Peter had a moment of questioning his sanity. He was in a plane full of HYDRA agents and mercenaries, off on a journey to rescue Deadpool. He wondered what would happen when he saw Wade. Would he suddenly remember everything? Would he be repulsed? What if Wade was dead? What would he feel? Would he feel anything?

Unexpected tears again fell from his eyes.