The third time they met, it was a week after their second meeting, though Peter was reluctant to call it their second meeting because Deadpool didn't know he was Spider-Man.

Cap called for all-hands-on-deck to help out with the army of Hydra agents who'd decided to swarm New York. Peter took it as an opportunity to release all the stress that had built up when May told Peter that she no longer wanted to stay in his childhood home because it had too many memories of Ben. Peter, being a good nephew, told her he'd help box everything up and find a cheaper place, but inside, his mind was a roiling mess of mixed emotions. The house contained so many good memories from Peter's childhood, and, as he was a millennial, he was even more prone to sentimental nostalgia than most.

Peter didn't want to lose the garage where every Saturday since Peter was old enough to hold a screwdriver, Ben had taught him how to fix something new on the old Jeep he'd loved so much. Peter would miss all the times May had danced around the kitchen while she cooked, all the times Ben sat at the dining room table and helped Peter with his English and History homework, all the times they'd had family movie night in the den with May holding Ben's hand while she rested her head on his shoulder. If May sold the house, he felt like he'd lose all the good things that had been in his life before he'd put on the Spider-Man mask. He really wanted to stop having to lose the things he loved, just because he'd been bitten by a genetically altered spider. But ultimately it was May's decision, and Peter would go along with what she decided.

Consequently, with all his anger and sadness, he found himself taking out his emotions on the Hydra goons that had gathered, as if by the grace of all things Asgardian.

He tossed a wad of webbing at a Hydra agent's face, laughing a bit manically at his own quips.

"—and then I said, that's a tuxedo, not a penguin!" Spider-Man crowed, going so far as to slap his knee. "Can you believe it?!"

All the agents were outfitted with green body armor and plasma taser guns that looked like they'd been inspired by the phasers from Star Trek. He wasn't quite sure why they had those, instead of guns with actual bullets, but he was glad. He usually ended up freaking out anytime he heard a gun go off, not only because the shot echoed through his sensitive hearing like a bomb going off right beside him, but also because it always gave him flashbacks of the night he'd found Ben's lifeless body. And he really didn't need to be reminded of that in the middle of kicking Hydra ass.

One of the goons tried to shoot at him, but Spider-Man dove out of the way, swung himself up and around a lamppost, and drove both of his feet into the man's chest, knocking him out. He webbed the man to the ground and looked up, not seeing anyone from his little faction which had been tasked with the job of cutting the army off before they spread to his home turf in Queens.

He still wasn't sure what Hydra was after, besides causing general chaos and mayhem, (or maybe it was all a diversion to lure one of the heroes out?). It didn't help that none of the Avengers had felt like elaborating either, so Spider-Man just did his best to incapacitate as many of the agents as possible. His plan was to cordon off the main roads with walls of webbing that would be thick enough that, unless the goons had a plasma cannon or repulsor, they wouldn't be able to cut through. However, somehow Spider-Man found himself on a side street, having had to deal with four stragglers, and cut off from Hawkeye, Falcon, and Scarlet Witch.

Spider-Man sighed.

If the Avengers could pull their heads out of their asses to at least give him a commlink (he'd stopped wanting to join the team right around the time he realized that all of them did their utmost to leave him out of potential boss fights because they didn't want him to get in the way), he'd be able to call for back up, or, you know, actually join his team and tell them his plan. As it was, Spider-Man didn't have time for either because a fresh group of twenty or so soldiers had just been air dropped right in front of him. Well, at least he now knew how they were getting into the city, though that information still didn't help, seeing as he didn't have a fucking comm.

"Well, hiya guys!" Spider-Man said, waving at his attackers and forcing himself to calm down so he'd be able to pull his punches and not make Jell-O out of anyone's insides with his strength, which would just be gross. "Is this the part where you try to charge at me all at once instead of, you know, being strategic about it?"

The group charged at him all at once.

Spider-Man let out a tsk-tsk and slammed the closest goons into the nearest wall with a length of webbing.

"You all just don't learn, do ya?" he asked.

He webbed a phaser (he was going to call them that because, while Hydra might be big and scary and evil, their scientist had made legit phasers. What the actual fuck kind of geeky evil scientist worked for Hydra?) out of a woman's hand saying, "you look better in red, Lieutenant Uhura. Maybe you should have Scotty beam you up."

He laughed and ducked her fist, sticking her to a mailbox with some of his webbing.

"Curly, Larry, Moe, nice of you guys to join us," Spider-Man said as he webbed three guys to a lamppost, using the momentum to backhand spring a kick into another person's jaw and send them and the girl to their right into a glass storefront. Even Spider-Man winced at that one, but then he kept moving.

"Wanna know something I heard, the other day?"

One of the goons actually asked "what?" as he tried to shoot Spider-Man's legs.

Laughing, Spider-Man just jumped and clung to the nearest thing, which happened to be the wall of an alley, webbed the man's phaser away from him and said, "this doesn't belong to you. It's the property rights of Universal Pictures now. Anyway, you wanna know the best part of a joke?"

The guy leaned down as if to grab one of the phasers that had fallen, and Spider-Man punched the soldier across the face, sending him flying backward.

"The punch line! Get it?"

Just as Spider-Man took out three more men, his Spidey Sense went off, and he turned just in time to see the street explode and send a body flying at him.

He heard a shout of, "yippee-ki-yay motherfuckers—look out!" from a now familiar voice, just before he was tackled to the ground by six feet and two inches of solid muscle. The breath was knocked from his lungs, his head hit the pavement hard, and he felt an intense wave of heat rake down his sides. The man on top of him let out a pained grunt but soon the heat dissipated, and everything was quiet.

Spider-Man laid there, dazed and disoriented with his face pressed uncomfortably into concrete, his heart beating frantically in his ears, and the uneven breaths from the body above him soothing his nerves, oddly enough. After a minute of catching his breath, Spider-Man bucked his assailant off him, rolled several feet away, and stood. He took a moment to make sure no one had been seriously harmed by the small explosion before he even acknowledged the unmoving red and black suit on the ground to his left.

The explosion had been set off behind him, and the intensity of the blast had pushed the remaining Hydra agents into the mouth of the ally they'd been standing next to. Spider-Man noticed that while some of the soldiers looked a bit charred, no one seemed to have anything worse than a concussion.

He walked back over to Deadpool, gripped him by his arm, pulled him up, and said, "we've gotta stop meeting like this, Red. You okay?"

The whole back of Deadpool's suit was burnt black, smelled liked cooked…something. He shook his head, but the word escaped him. He likely also had a concussion. In his distracted state, Spider-Man patted out a few mini fires that had settled up near Deadpool's broad shoulders. However, the moment Spider-Man went from patting out the fires to kind of just…petting, Deadpool slid out of his grasp and laughed manically.

"Oh, Baby Boy, that was fun! Of course, I'm okay. Nothin' like a nice s'plosion in the mornin' to grow some hair on a man's ballsack—wait…I think that's the wrong expression," Deadpool said, his voice a bit too light and unconcerned for Spider-Man to believe him. But they didn't have time to argue, and right now Spider-Man couldn't afford to worry about him.

"Okay, well, I'm glad to have the backup. Thanks for taking the brunt of the fire," Spider-Man said, checking his web shooters to make sure they hadn't been harmed when he'd tried to catch himself after Deadpool had knocked him to the ground. He'd been fighting for at least half an hour and knew fluid in the tiny glass tubes would be good for another two. "Did you happen to see where the others are? We need to regroup. I have a plan."

"They're not too far away, maybe two or three streets," Deadpool said unsheathing one of his katanas, pulling out one of the twin pistols at his thighs, and making a move to leave the alley. He stopped dead when Spider-Man turned around, facing his back to Deadpool and bent his knees. "Uh, Spidey, not that I mind the view, but what the fuck are you doin'?"

He looked over his shoulder and giggled at Deadpool's miffed tone, taking it as the victory it was for being unpredictable to the most unpredictable man on the planet.

"It'll be faster if I swing us there. Get on."

"Uh," Deadpool said, and Spider-Man wondered for half a second if he'd broken the man's brain more than it usually was. But then he sheathed his sword, holstered his gun, and full body shook himself like a dog shook out water from its fur.

"Hells yeah, Spidey-babe! I'm gonna Bella Swan the shit outta this—that is to say, I'm a fuckin' spider-monkey you. Hah! Spider! Get it?"

Deadpool launched himself at Spider-Man's back laughing like the maddest hatter in the world. Spider-Man grunted with the force of all 210 pounds of the man jumping on him, but he had them up and swinging across the street in no time.

"You watch Twilight?" Spider-Man asked because he couldn't help it, he had a sick need to acknowledge Deadpool's commentary. "Dude that's nasty."

Deadpool gasped and slapped a hand on Spider-Man's shoulder but otherwise stayed still.

"You take that back, Spidey. That book has tons of potentially awesome world building and characterization. Well, obviously, not in Bella and Edward, those dicks are teenaged, emo assholes. I'm talking about Jasper in the vamp' war, or Rosalie takin' on her rapists," Deadpool said. "If Meyers had just unalived Bella and Edward in the first chapter, and focused on some hot Alice on Jasper action, I woulda been toats happy. And what the fuck was that shit she tried to pull with Jacob and Nessy? How about, no. He was in love with her mom—wanted to bang her an' shit—an' now he's all up on baby girl? I don't fuckin' think so. I mean, why didn't we hear more about Leah, bein' the only fuckin' female wolf in the history of the tribe?! But no, she focused on the fucked up, borderline abusive—yes it was abusive—relationship between a centuries-old vamp and a sulky tween. Jesus fuck no wonder why it has a bad ass reputation, and not the good kind of bad or ass, such as yourself, Baby Boy."

"But then it'd be Game of Thrones if they died, and the two cannot compare," Spider-Man supplied with a chuckle when Deadpool finally took a breath. "Jon and Dany make a better couple, anyway. Still a better love story than Twilight."

"Ooooh, Baby Boy, do I have news for you—"

"No spoilers! Or I swear I'll drop you," Spider-Man shouted over his shoulder, jostling Deadpool for good measure. The bulky merc let out a high-pitched shriek and clutched his shoulders tighter. "I mean it, Red. I haven't seen past when Joffery died."

"The fuck, Spidey-babe?" Deadpool asked, scandalized. "You're missing, like, everything. And there's like three more seasons and the last half of the fourth one."

Spider-Man just laughed at how genuinely distressed Deadpool seemed to be over this new fact about the hero.

Deadpool launched into a lecture on the merits of the next few seasons, being surprisingly careful of his words as not to give away anything. Spider-Man just let the ex-soldier's voice wash over him as he webbed up to the rest of the team, avoiding stray taser bolts shot from the Hydra agents. He wasn't used to carrying people on his back while webbing through the city, but Deadpool stayed pretty balanced and didn't throw off his equilibrium.

Well. He didn't.

Until his rant ended, and he decided to scream, "we're soaaaaring, flyyyying, there's not a star in heaven that we can't—oh shit I think I'm gonna hurl," right into his ears as Spider-Man somersaulted over a low roof.

"If you puke on me I will kick you into a wall and web you to said wall, like a bug," Spider-Man shouted at him, flipping them both in the air so he could toss out another web and change streets. He wasn't feeling very violent towards the red and black masked man, but he really didn't want puke on him. It was hard to wash out of the stretchy fabric of his suit, as he knew all too well.

Deadpool made a choked sound, gripped Spider-Man's shoulders hard, and said, "well, well, Webs. Didn't peg ya for the kinky type. Haha! Peg! As in my di—"

"I know what you meant!" Spider-Man said, blushing and thanking Thor when he saw the group of Hydra soldiers closing in on Scarlet Witch.

Spider-Man landed next to her and punched one of the goons in the face, surprised when Deadpool didn't linger on his back. He slid off immediately, charging into a group of Hydra agents with a manic laugh and a shout of "Surprise motherfuckers!" and "Rue dies motherfuckers!"

After webbing a few of the agents to the nearest available surfaces, Spider-Man took a moment to appreciate Deadpool in the midst of battle. He kept up a constant stream of commentary, which wasn't surprising when his moniker of Merc with a Mouth was literally because he couldn't shut up, but the guy was seriously funny.

The way Deadpool ducked and dodged around punches and bullets, kicked and flipped over the heads of some of the goons, much to their surprise, and contorted his body in ways even Spider-Man wasn't sure he could pull off himself, in order to both slice with his katana and shoot his pistol, was so…beautiful. Deadpool looked like he was dancing, the way he moved so smooth, so graceful. Spider-Man realized that he was just as dangerously skilled as Black Widow, though he was more willing to take the bullets than Widow ever was. And though he'd maimed a few people, none of them were dead. Which gave Spider-Man pause.

It seemed like Deadpool had been serious about turning over a new leaf.

A "Spider-Man, behind you!" and the sharp, almost painful, shriek of MOVE! from his Spidey Sense jolted him out of watching the mercenary. He turned his head to the side just as a plasma blast whizzed right by his cheek, a hairsbreadth away.

Right. Battle.

He should probably help with that.

"I have a plan!" he shouted at Scarlet Witch, shoving an agent away from him and punching him in the stomach. "Tell Hawkeye to cover me, I'm gonna seal off the end of the street."

The battle was a blur after that.

He sealed the streets with his webs and tried his best not to take any of the taser blasts, and eventually bullets, when the agents lost their phasers, to the heart or head. By the time he'd finished and dropped down from one of the buildings he'd been crawling, in search of the last of the agents, he was exhausted and just wanted to go home to sleep for the next twenty years. A commotion further down the street caught his attention though, and he went to investigate it, considering he'd thought they'd gotten all of the Hydra goons they'd somehow missed the first time.

"—and a menace to this city! He deserves to be in custody!" It was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent, holding a pair of handcuffs out towards a slumped over Deadpool, who wasn't talking back. The hair on the back of Spider-Man's neck rose and alarm bells went off in his head.

Deadpool was rarely ever quiet.

"He literally just saved our asses," came a reply to the agent in the form of Hawkeye who stood protectively in front of Deadpool. "And he's obviously injured. You're not taking him."

"He has arrest warrants in over twenty—"

"Hey, you. Yeah, you. Unnamed S.H.I.E.L.D. agent," Spider-Man said, pointing at the average-joe looking guy with sunglasses on, even though it was cloudy and there was no reason to be wearing sunglasses.

Both the agent and Hawkeye turned to look at him.

Clint gave him a Nod of Acknowledgement™ and signed, "you okay?"

Spider-Man nodded and continued, "take a look around you, guy. Deadpool hasn't killed anyone at all today. Or in the past three months. Lay off 'em, wouldya? He's hurt."

Spider-Man knelt down next to Deadpool and gently rolled him onto his back to take in the damage. He had a bullet hole in his head and his suit was all kinds of torn from what looked like a litany of knife and bullet wounds (…and were those…bite marks?) but there was too much dried blood to tell.

"Jesus," he said to himself, "this has gotta hurt like sh—like the dickens."

Clint snorted at his catch in language, and Spider-Man couldn't help but flip him off. Peter tried to keep his cussing down when he was Spider-Man because of how many run-ins with little kids he had, but sometimes that was harder than it seemed. Even though May had raised him right, cussing was just part of his youth culture (or so he defended when May threatened him with bars of soap for dinner).

Just then Deadpool sat up, screaming, "but I don't wanna eat the banana hat of shame!" then actually took in his surroundings.

"Goddamn, I feel like I've been run through the meat grinder, ate by a goat, and then shat out," Deadpool sighed as he rubbed his head with a hand that was missing two fingers. "Hey Spidey, does this count as the second date?"

Clint, who choked on his own spit, took that moment to lead the now spluttering S.H.I.E.L.D. agent away signing, "take care of him and I won't tell" to Spider-Man as they walked away.

Spider-Man nodded and stood, holding his hand out for Deadpool to take.

"No. And neither does our first meeting. Plus, goats don't eat meat, Red," Spider-Man sighed, helping the antihero up.

"I know that wasn't a 'no' to the actual dating part," Deadpool said to what must've been one of the voices in his mind. He shook his head like he was trying to get water out of his ears.

"We're not dating, Deadpool," Spider-Man answered. He just knew his face was beat red under his mask. Plus, even if he liked how ripped (of course in the muscular sense) Deadpool was, that didn't excuse the fact that Wade was like, twenty years older than him. And he was barely legal. "You're covered in blood, Wade. I'm pretty sure that's a dating faux pas."

"Hells bells my name sounds so pretty on your pretty lips! Well, I just know they're pretty because, I mean, come on. Girl look at dat body," Deadpool said, then tilted his head to the side and stumbled a bit when Spider-Man let him go. "Yeah, you're right. Hey Webs, when did we tell you our name?"

That drew Spider-Man up short. Because, fuck, that had been while he was Peter.

"Uh, well, it isn't like it's the world's best-kept secret," Spider-Man tried, slinging Deadpool's arm around his shoulders when he realized Deadpool was missing a leg.

Deadpool laughed and leaned heavily against Spider-Man's side.

"That's true. It is on my Craigslist page," he amended, starting to hop down the street with Spider-Man carrying most of his weight, not that it was a problem with his super strength. Spider-Man knew better than to ask where they were going. At this point, he just hoped it wasn't into even more trouble, though with Deadpool at his side, that was highly unlikely. "Say, you been researchin' me Webhead?"

"You could say that," Spider-Man replied, happy that Deadpool was no longer suspicious. "Or, you could say that you're an infamous merc who's reputation proceeds them. And I know some chatty cat burglars."

"I didn't know you cared, Baby Boy! Also good on you, getin' some of that pussy. Get it. Because Black Cat," Deadpool laughed, and something in Spider-Man's chest loosened at the sound. It was a genuine laugh and he had the feeling Deadpool rarely ever had reason to genuinely laugh.

"I'm not getting with Black Cat," Spider-Man said, rolling his eyes, and pulling Deadpool to his side even more, easily holding the man up, even though he was nearly a head shorter. "She's a villain. I can't date her. I just web her up for the cops—"

"O-ho-ho, Baby Boy, you a kiss an' tell kinda guy?" Deadpool's voice was teasing, but it had gained a bit of an edge. Spider-Man wondered what he'd said to cause that to happen.

"Anyway, I just wanted to really thank you for your help today," Spider-Man said, realizing that they were walking towards the best hole in the wall Mexican food place that side of Harlem.

"It ain't nothin' but a thang, Baby Boy," Deadpool said, scratching the back of his masked head like he wasn't used to genuine thanks coming from anyone.

Spider-Man frowned.

That had to suck—if he didn't hear May say thanks at least a little bit when he did nice things for her, he'd definitely be discouraged to keep doing them. No wonder why Deadpool's good deeds were so few and far between.

"Well, you did really good work today, Red. I appreciate you, not, as you say, unaliving anyone," Spider-Man continued, noticing that Deadpool's muscles were getting tenser by the second. "So, thanks for not killing as well."

Deadpool suddenly pushed out of Spider-Man's grip and turned away from him.

"Well I'd love to stay and chat, but I gotta see a man about a unicorn," Deadpool said, tapping at his belt. Spider-Man was caught speechless, unsure of what had just happened. "And that man is myself—because unicorn porn is a thing. And we're gonna touch ourselves tonight."

And then he just kind of…vanished.

Spider-Man stood there, speechless, for a few long minutes before shrugging and heading home. It wasn't like standing there would bring Deadpool back. Or explain why he'd left so quickly.

When he tumbled into his tiny dorm room through the small window that faced the alley, he flopped onto his bed, pulling out his cellphone and looking at the number that he'd been agonizing over for the past several days.

Finally, he tapped out:

Sent. 6:30 pm

Found that card you left in my jeans.

That was a pretty smooth move.

It wasn't until after Peter had taken his suit off, showered, and was making ramen by way of his cheap five-dollar coffee pot, that his phone chimed with an incoming text.

Received. 7:13 pm

Petey u gotta clean ur jeans more often

than that

Peter grinned and sat back in his bed.

Sent. 7:15 pm

Who said it took me this long to find it?

Peter got up to get his ramen and a pair of chopsticks.

He'd just settled back into bed, his laptop open to his pilfered Netflix account from his neighbor Ned (who was a pretty chill guy, and he should probably make more effort to have friends—not that it'd ever worked out well for him), that his phone pinged with several incoming texts.

Received. 7:27 pm

Gasp! U left me hangin'?

Received. 7:28 pm

That's rude

Received. 7:28 pm

I like rude tho BB ;)

Received. 7:28 pm

My safe word's Bananas

Received. 7:29 pm

B-A-N-A-N-A-S!

Peter's stomach did a weird, warm tingle thing when he saw the acronym he knew meant "baby" but that he replaced as "baby boy" in his head since Deadpool insisted on calling Spider-Man that.

He ignored the fuzzy feelings it gave him, because of course that couldn't be a good sign, and hey, maybe the milk he'd just drank was a bit too expired.

He spent the rest of the evening texting Wade who'd decided to watch Breaking Bad since Peter had mentioned that was what he was watching. So, what if they were technically watching it together now? Wade's comments were gold and it was nice to have someone to appreciate his sense of humor. They could be friends, right?