]The sixth, seventh, and eighth times they met were while Spider-Man was on patrol and Deadpool went with him.
Before they'd gone out criminal-hunting during meeting number six, Spider-Man had given Deadpool an extensive lecture on the use of force that fell right in line with the New York city polices' definition of when it was okay to use excessive force (he may have quoted directly from the NYPD website just to make sure Deadpool was clear on where the line would be drawn.) Right up until they'd encountered their first perp, Spider-Man had been sure the Rugrats theme song had played in Deadpool's head during his lecture (Deadpool had been worryingly silent the entire time, but that also could've been because Spider-Man had pinned him to a wall, in all his super strength glory, to make sure Deadpool knew he'd meant business). However, Spider-Man had been pleasantly surprised to find that Deadpool was actually good at subduing criminals with the least amount of force possible. Spider-Man had rewarded the merc's good behavior with a piggyback ride to his (their) apartment(s).
The seventh meeting lead to Spider-Man realizing that Deadpool was the best kind of back up to have during patrol, due to his speed, agility, strength, intelligence, and overall assassin skillset (besides the murdering and torturing people parts.) He realized this when, while trying to stop a seemingly simple cut-and-dry robbery, they'd accidentally disrupted a drug cartel's operation. Spider-Man had been knocked out by a few goons and taken hostage. However, Deadpool had saved him, right before the leader of the cartel had ripped off his mask. Deadpool only maimed two of the twenty people in the abandoned warehouse. Spider-Man counted it as progress and rewarded him with a long (and lingering) hug of relief and gratitude.
After both of those patrols ended, Deadpool asked to get food.
"It's so we can watch the sunrise while we eat, Baby Boy," Deadpool tried to convince him. "It's my secret remedy to relaxin' after all that adrenaline build-up. Or, you know, we could do other things that would…release some tension. If ya get my meanin'?"
Deadpool always stepped close, close enough Spider-Man could just lean up and slot their mouths together, if he ever felt so inclined. He never did. Kiss Deadpool or even felt inclined to do so. Obviously.
"Ew," Peter would say, pushing Deadpool gently away with his hand. He chose to ignore the way his hand sort of…lingered against Deadpool's pecs every time.
Deadpool would laugh and Peter would swing away, his face scarlet under his mask.
The eighth meeting was an accident.
Spider-Man had gotten in a fight with the Green Goblin, as always. However, this time, the Goblin had retrofitted his weapons with alien tech. Needless to say, Peter got out of the fight by the skin of his teeth, webbed up the Goblin for the police (even though he knew Harry would just be out on the streets by lunch the next day), and headed home, bruised and bloody, with large, un-healing gashes on his thighs and across his ribs.
He'd crawled through the window of what he'd assumed was his apartment, only to be met with a gun in his face and a familiar whiskey-deep voice saying, "take another step and I'll blow your brains out."
"Wade," Spider-Man gasped, knowing it was likely the only thing to give Deadpool pause. Wade lowered his gun, and Spider-Man realized he was only wearing a pair of loose, grey sweatpants and a soft lounge mask. His chest was naked, the shifting sores and scars and healing wounds on perfect display for his greedy gaze. Spider-Man had about half a second of admiration before he said, "help me."
Then he promptly passed out.
The next morning, he woke up on Wade's couch, not wearing his suit. He panicked for half a minute before his hand touched his face and came into contact with his Spider mask.
"Your suit was in shreds," came Wade's voice from the kitchen. Spider-Man turned to see Wade, now wearing a shirt, flipping a pancake at the stove. "I had to cut it off to stitch your wounds, Baby Boy. But don't worry, I was gentlemanly. Didn't take a peek under that mask of yours. Didn't even cop a feel of that glorious Spider-booty, neither. Also, I made pancakes! They're the best for regeneration, trust me—haha, you're right, he shouldn't trust us! Fuck yeah, three-oh-three rules!"
Spider-Man got up then, walked up to Wade's tense, broad back (Jesus he was starting to realize he had a bit of a size kink), and hugged him from behind. He pressed his forehead into the space between Wade's shoulder blades and inhaled his familiar scent.
"I do trust you, Red," Spider-Man said, softly. "I trust you a hell of a lot more than I should."
Then his stomach growled, and Wade had made him sit down at a rickety table and eat the mountain of pancakes he'd made. Spider-Man didn't mind, he just basked in the easy domesticity of it. And when he looked up at Wade, as the older man served him more pancakes, Spider-Man realized that he really was in trouble.
Somehow, along the way, Wade had gotten under his skin. Spider-Man relaxed in the man's presence and felt good and right when he did.
He knew, just knew, Wade couldn't keep the good act up forever, even if he wanted to. His brain wasn't wired that way. He was a mercenary and Spider-Man wasn't stupid or innocent, he knew what mercenaries did and got paid to do. The Deadpool suit was also outfitted with more weapons than any one man should be able to carry, Spider-Man had noted that on day one. No one in their right mind could ignore the danger that bubbled just below the surface of Wade's charming (but mostly impulsively insane) personality. Spider-Man knew it would all blow up in his face eventually, it was just a matter of when.
But he just couldn't detangle himself from Wade—the older man had somehow carved his way into Spider-Man's life with both his katana's and he was there to stay like a loyal guard dog, Thor help him.
Their ninth and tenth meetings were outside of the uniforms.
Their ninth meeting happened at Aunt May's, actually.
Apparently, while Peter wasn't looking, Wade had become May's BFF (he had her wrapped around his little finger, as evidence from the amazing lemon meringue pie she'd made for dessert that night—May had always said she'd hated making the meringue when Peter asked her to make it) and they had a standing Tuesday night date to watch Golden Girl reruns. After dinner that night, Peter and Wade fell onto the couch while May had sat in the rocking chair. Peter, who'd brought his dinosaur of a laptop with him, so he could type up his lab notes that were due, just leaned against Wade's side while the other two watched the show. He loved listening to Wade's laughter, which was a pleasant enough background noise that he was able to write the entire thing in one sitting (usually he couldn't focus long enough to do that). Peter was also secretly addicted to Wade's warm body (which he'd chalked up to Wade's healing factor constantly being in use to fight the cancer), which was the reason Peter refused to see the knowing look May tossed his way as he snuggled under Wade's heavy (grounding) arm.
Their tenth meeting, Peter hadn't been able to sleep.
He was prone to insomnia now since his body never really got a chance to get a full sleep cycle. He'd been roaming the halls of their apartment complex on his skateboard to keep himself entertained, having just come back from patrol, high with adrenaline, and not having any work or class the next day. When he'd made the fourth pass by Wade's door, he finally stopped and rapped his knuckles against the blue door.
"Thought you'd never knock," Wade laughed, opening the door and motioning for Peter to come in. Peter stepped into the frighteningly similar apartment and looked Wade up and down. He did not feel disappointed when Wade was fully clothed…in, was that a matching Spider-Man sleep set?
"Can't sleep," Peter said by way of explanation, flopping down onto Wade's couch. The TV was muted but he watched the ending of Prisoner of Azkaban play on the screen. "What's your excuse for being up at three in the Goddamned morning?"
"I rarely sleep, Petey-pie," Wade said as he went to the kitchen, pulled something out of the fridge, and came back to sit next to Peter. "You look like shit, Pete. Here, have a taco."
Peter was becoming used to reading Wade's obsession with Mexican food. Where the British responded to anything potentially upsetting with tea, Wade responded with tacos.
"It's cold," Peter complained but tore into the food anyway. He snuggled up to Wade's side (Wade already had his arms open and waiting) as Wade flipped through some channels before settling on football. Peter's nose wrinkled. "Ew. Why'd you wanna watch that?"
"It's only the greatest American—"
"You're Canadian."
"—sport of all time that—"
"I thought that was baseball."
"Pete. D'ya mind if I speak?" Peter made a negative sound at the back of his throat, nuzzling his nose into Wade's chest like a cat looking for pets. Wade chuckled and slid a hand into his soft hair. "Anyway, what d'ya care? You're about to fall asleep, sleepy-head."
"Say tha' to m'face," Peter mumbled, letting Wade's warmth soak into him as he drifted off, relaxing into the hand Wade had begun to card through his hair. "Dare ya."
The last thing he heard was, "Loki's greasy black hair, he's so fuckin' adorable—I agree, Yellow. We are in, waaaaay too deep. But I couldn't care any less."
Peter woke the next morning with a post-it on his forehead that read: "Food in the fridge. Don't know when I'll be back. Stay safe."
A chibi Deadpool with heart-eyes was drawn at the bottom corner.
Peter crumpled the note in anger and then immediately regretted it. Wade had been doing so well. What had gone wrong?
Their eleventh meeting started with Spider-Man throwing a punch at Deadpool's face. The older man just barely ducked before Spider-Man's fist smashed into the brick behind him.
"Nice to see ya too, Baby Boy," Deadpool said, but there was a warning in his tone. Spider-Man ignored it and webbed Deadpool the wall.
"Where the hell have you been?!" he screamed, getting right into Deadpool's face and slamming his fists down on either side of Deadpool's head. The brick crumbled against the force.
"Aww, Webs, were you worried about me?" Deadpool asked, leaning his face down so their foreheads touched.
"It's been a month, without any word of your whereabouts." Spider-Man knocked his head against Deadpool's, but his temper was quickly fading. "Where were you, Red?" His voice was sadder than he meant it to be.
"I uh, I quit," was the answer he received.
Spider-Man staggered back in shock, the bottom of his stomach dropping the way it did on roller coasters or when driving too fast on small hills.
"You…what?"
"Oh, shit. No, Baby Boy, that's not what I meant," Deadpool said quickly, noticing Spider-Man's distressed tone. "I quit the mercenary work. Hung up my katanas, as it were. Well. Not really, cus my babies need exercise. But you get my drift…I think. Anyway, I decided to stop taking assassin jobs, ya know? Only, I had a few ex-employers take insult and decide to try'n kill me, but I made sure they knew I was for real, ya dig? No take backs, amiright? S.H.I.E.L.D. got word, decided to send some goons to rough me up, get the downlow, whateves, and so I had to go to ground for a while. But now I'm back and on the strait an' narrow—yeah, we've never been straight or narrow in our entire lives—and I only take S.H.I.E.L.D. approved jobs or jobs that's just a bit of light roughin' up now. But I wanna be in the hero-ing beeswax, with you, Baby Boy. I wanna be good for ya."
"Oh," Spider-Man said, when Deadpool's words sunk in (the last sentence sent a sharp jolt of heat into his stomach—and yeah, he'd need to examine that later.) "So, you quit mercenary work for good?"
"Kinda, yeah," Deadpool answered, leaning their heads together again. Spider-Man could see Deadpool's grin through his mask and had stopped trying to figure out how the man expressed emotions with the panda eyes. "Sorry for worryin' you, Spidey-babe."
Spider-Man nodded and ripped the webbing away from Deadpool's body to free him. When Deadpool was standing, Spider-Man slid his arms around the taller man's waist, hugging him hard.
"Guess you missed me, huh, Baby Boy?"
"Yeah," he answered to both their surprise. "I really did. Don't leave like that again."
Deadpool nodded, wound his arms around Spider-Man's back, and sighed, "I won't, Spidey. I promise."
"Good. You wanna patrol with me?" Spider-Man asked, even though he felt exhausted.
"Sure thing, Webhead," Deadpool agreed easily.
Later that night, Spider-Man finally accepted Deadpool's offer of some post-patrol tacos. After that Peter lost count of their meetings. There were many, both in, and outside of, their suits. As Spider-Man, he and Deadpool regularly teamed up, to the point they'd worked out a patrol schedule and Spider-Man had gotten a burner phone so him and Deadpool could text. As Peter, he and Wade had become so inseparable, that he spent most nights at Wade's place because it was easier to sleep when he knew Wade would keep the bad guys away or wake him up if he started to have nightmares.
It was in this way that he'd forgotten to be scared of just what Wade was capable of.
They were sitting atop a high-rise, the one that had become their meeting place, chowing down on Chinese (he'd finally, finally convinced Deadpool that there was more to life than Mexican) when Spider-Man heard a woman's scream. He immediately set his food down, made sure his mask was back in place to cover the bottom half of his face, and swung away without a word. At this point, they ran together like a well-oiled machine and Deadpool knew how to follow him from the streets when Spider-Man didn't have time to give him piggy-back rides.
It was a two-man mugging and Spider-Man got to the alley just in time to see a mother trying to shield her son as one of the muggers pulled out a knife. He thrust it forward, towards the woman's heaving chest, as the other man taunted her from behind his friend.
Stepping into gear, Spider-Man said, "Hey, don't'cha know it's rude to shove knives at ladies in fluffy sweaters?" just as he shot some webbing at the guy's hand and kicked the guy in the head, sending him flying into a nearby lamppost where the man crumpled into an unconscious heap.
"I mean, really, what's wrong with these guys and their manners?" he said to the crying woman and her son. "Must have mommy issues. Anyway, go ahead an' leave, I'll take care of this." The mother grabbed her child and hightailed it out of the alley, stopping only to grab her purse.
"Not even a thank you from the bitch."
Spider-Man turned at the voice to see the second man's face twisted into an ugly smirk.
He never saw the man pull the gun, but he heard the shot anyway. For a moment he thought he'd been shot. But when he looked himself over, he was fine. Naught a scratch to be found.
He looked up to see Deadpool, arm rigid, holding Clyde out towards his would-be murderer. Spider-Man followed the line of Deadpool's muscled arm and watched as the mugger's limp body fell to the ground with a sickening squelch. He looked back at Deadpool with shock, but it wasn't hisDeadpool he saw. His Deadpool wouldn't have just shot the guy. Not his charming, kind, funny, soft as a teddy-bear Wade who'd been taking tougher guys down with better methods these past months. No, this Deadpool was someone completely different. He wasn't talking, or making jokes, or laughing. He was silent and cold and deadly. He was a killer.
Spider-Man ran over to the man and held him up towards the light, chanting, "no, no, no! Please don't be dead. Please. Please."
But he was too late. There was a hole in the man's head and his eyes were glazed over and starring, unseeing, up at the night sky.
Spider-Man's body began to shake, and tears welled in his eyes because he wasn't seeing the mugger anymore, he was seeing Ben. His uncle. His dad. Laying helpless, lifeless, in his arms because he hadn't been quick enough. Good enough. Smart enough. To stop any of it. Fucking again.
"Baby Boy? You okay?" Wade's familiar voice broke through the blood and adrenaline rushing in Spider-Man's ears and he snapped his head up to glare at the person he'd trusted when he knew he shouldn't have. The person he'd hoped would prove him wrong.
"What—what the actual fuck, Wade?" Spider-Man shouted as he dropped the mugger's limp body to the ground, which sent brain matter splashing up onto his masked face.
Spider-Man felt bile rise in his throat. He lifted his mask just in time to lean next to a dirty dumpster and puke up the Chinese he'd just eaten not even an hour ago when they'd been laughing and trading puns. He brought his hand up to wipe his mouth when he saw the blood that coated his gloves. He needed them off.
Right.
Now.
He ripped them off with his teeth, but the blood had soaked through to his skin underneath. He gagged and coughed up more bile as he scrubbed his hands on his suit feeling dirty. Helpless. Small.
Stupid. So utterly, completely stupid.
And the blood wouldn't come off.
It kept sticking to him like a bad disease and he could barely breathe with the scent of piss, and vomit, and blood in the alley clogging his nose. Suffocating him.
A sharp pain went through his head as he hunched over, heaving the last of his stomach's content onto the cracked pavement.
His eyes watered.
He couldn't breathe. Couldn't think.
His Spidey Sense screamed dangerous, for the first time ever in Deadpool's presence.
He clutched his head with both hands trying his best to remain in the present. What the fuck had Wade done?
"He had a gun. He was going to shoot you," Wade finally said, making a move to comfort Spider-Man but thinking better of it when Spider-Man began to laugh hysterically.
"My Spidey Sense would've warned me!" he shouted, getting up on his feet and backing away from Deadpool. Backing away from the…the murderer.
Fuck, he should've known it would come to this. He was running around with Wade fucking Willison. Who did he think he'd been kidding?
"You told me yourself, your Spidey Sense is faulty." Deadpool's tone was calm, like they were talking about the weather, not like he'd just killed a man right before Spider-Man's eyes.
"Only around you!" Peter (yes Peter, because he decidedly didn't feel like Spider-Man at the moment—Spider-Man made him feel in control and he was so not in control at the moment) roared because fuck Wade and his calmness in the face of fucking death. "You didn't have to shoot him! You could've wounded him, or warned me, or cut his arm off with Bae, or—or fucking something! You could've literally done anything else, Wade!"
"I didn't have time to think," Wade said, reaching out to touch Peter's shoulder as if touching him with the hands that had just killed would ever make Peter feel better.
Peter laughed again, because, fuck, at one point that had been true. He'd let a known assassin comfort him. Many times.
A small part of Peter's consciousness reminded him the Wade had just quit the mercenary business. Peter ignored it.
Peter jerked away from Wade; the first time he'd ever avoided Wade's touch.
"And your first instinct was to kill," he didn't say it as a question, because he knew what the answer would be.
He'd always known what the answer would be, he'd just been deluding himself. And even though he'd known this would happen, knew this was just the way Wade had been programmed, since Weapon X, it didn't stop the stab of utter pain and grief from slicing his chest open and making him feel like his heart was being ripped out.
"Your life will always matter more, Baby Bo—"
"Don't—don't call me that," Peter said because he couldn't—couldn't let Wade call him Baby Boy, make a joke, and smooth his anger over like what he'd done didn't go against every fiber of Peter's moral code.
"But—"
"No—I, I just can't, right now," and though he didn't think it was likely, he added in a dangerous tone (the one they both knew he only reserved for the worst scum he'd come across), "don't follow me, Deadpool."
When he'd made it home he immediately went to the shower. Numb and running on autopilot, he peeled his suit off, which had stuck to him with drying lifeblood. He turned the shower as hot as it would go and scrubbed himself.
Peter couldn't stop seeing the mugger's lifeless, cold eyes, Ben's scarlet blood as he said his final words, and the pain on Captain Stacy's face in his final moments, when he squeezed his eyes shut. He couldn't stop hearing Gwen's spine crack in the silence of the crumbling clocktower or the anger in Harry's voice when he'd told him about his father.
He kept scrubbing.
And scrubbing.
And scrubbing.
God. Damn. It.
But the blood didn't stop swirling pink down the drain.
It took him an hour to realize it was his own blood. He'd scrubbed so much that he'd actually peeled a layer of skin off his body.
His knees gave out and he sat under the water until it was so cold, his teeth chattered, and his healing factor had covered him in a new layer of skin. Woodenly he got out, dried off, and fell face first into bed, passing out the moment his head touched the pillow. That night his nightmares were the worse they'd ever been, with Wade starring in most of them as a man holding a gun to Uncle Ben's head. To Captain Stacy's chest.
After the fourth time he woke screaming, he padded barefoot and naked to the living room, completely giving up on sleep. He looked at the phone he'd left lying on the stand next to the couch.
304 new texts and 14 voicemails from Wade.
Peter tossed his phone against the wall, shattering the touchscreen. He picked up his burner phone (it had fallen from the pouch he kept it in when he'd stumble through the window), hoping to scroll through Pinterest until he felt better, but that was one of his dumbest ideas, to date.
98 new texts and 28 voicemails from Red.
The next day Peter got new phones and changed his numbers.
Three days after that he'd moved back in with May. He told her he'd had a major fight with Wade and that his place had a rodent infestation, and, besides, his lease was up anyway. May seemed like she wanted to say more, but let it go.
All of Wade's messages went unread for a week.
They went unanswered for three.
It took Peter three weeks to realize that maybe he'd over-reacted.
Wade had only been trying to save him and Peter knew that, at the end of the day, Wade really was a good man. He'd been given ample evidence of that through all the times Wade had basically saved his life, in one way or another.
It took Peter three weeks and losing his best friend to admit that he needed help in dealing with his PTSD and survivors guilt. He decided to join the PTSD group that Steve Rogers conducted every Saturday.
He met up with them the Saturday of week three (of course he went as Spider-Man—he still couldn't let anyone know his identity), and saw that though there were few in attendance, he was in good company, with Bucky and Sam Wilson and, surprisingly, Stark. He talked to them about what happened, being as vague as he could and making sure they believed this hypothetical friend who'd triggered his meltdown, was a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent.
Cap looked at Bucky and said, "Son, you can't let this outlier effect your whole friendship, if this person has been good to you. Friendship is sticking by someone, even on their worst days, and not letting your personal issues interfere with that."
He was right. Peter couldn't let one incident of his overreaction set back all the good Wade had done or all the progress he'd made. Plus, it wasn't like he'd killed the mugger for fun, and he'd been down to his last resort. Peter needed to make it right between them.
Spider-Man called and texted Deadpool's numbers accepting his many (several thousand) apologies and asking to meet up so they could talk. But by then, it was too late—Wade had left the country and wouldn't be back for nearly six months.