Sorry for the wait. Our poll is closed now, Deadpool has come out the victor with over 100 votes! Yeah! You guys are awesome, truly.
Let's get this show on the road, sorry it took me so long.
Yes. Peter was bruised. Yes, his every muscle ached. Yes, he had had his ass beaten to the ground by a woman. Yes, it had been almost pitiful. Yes, Natasha had spent half an hour trying to teach him a single move. Yes, he was sweating so badly he had to take a cold shower.
Yes, Peter felt better then he had in all four days of this wretched no-Spiderman punishment.
He lay back with a sigh and Pop adjusted the cold cloth on Peter's forehead.
Oh, yeah, and then there was the minor concussion. Which, since Peter had the strength of a human spider, was a very impressive feat for Natasha.
"Here you go," Iron Man, Tony was in uniform which just meant he was clanking around the living room looking rather silly in full armor, handed Peter a bowl of ice cream with half of a banana, mint ice cream, chocolate and caramel sauce, a cherry, and layers of whipped cream.
"No rainbow sprinkles," Peter joked. Iron Man sat down next to Peter on the couch, tugged off only the head of the armor, ran a hand through his hair, and then took a bite of his own identical banana split.
"None for me?" Steve raised his eyebrow. He looked, an annoyed expression on his face, at Tony's armor in an utterly silent but entirely readable way of saying 'Get out of the Iron Man, Tony, this is the living room not the war front'.
Tony stuck out his tongue. Peter laughed. Tony sat back smugly on the couch. "JARVIS, turn on the news."
JARVIS did, and the news was playing some reel about poisoned fish.
"Wait for it..." Tony held up his finger. "Now." Nothing changed. He waited until the reported stopped speaking. "Now."
"'Tony Stark, the first gay superhero, is still making headlines.'"
Tony beamed. "Aha," he exclaimed, "the biggest news of the century. Xavier sent me an actual letter of thanks. We won't be seeing wayward mutants in the news for months if I can drag this out."
"'Speculation over his chosen lover, however, rock the streets of New York in-'"
"Two girls in that drama club you made me join got into a fight today," Peter said.
"Was it sexy?" Tony asked.
Steve glared from the kitchen. "Tony," he warned.
"Sorry," Tony shook his head. "Go on," he said to Peter with a mischievous twinkle in his eye that said he was not at all sorry.
"It was Gwen and this girl Amy."
"Gwen... that girlfriend of yours?"
Peter rolled his eyes. "'Friend who is a girl'," he corrected.
Tony nodded sympathetically. "Don't you hate that?"
"Tony..."
Peter continued, "The teacher had to separate them."
"'...which of the Avengers do you think..."
"Now I'm curious," Tony Stark loaded as much ice cream and whipped cream onto a spoon as he could shove in his mouth, a large drop landed on his beard. Peter decided not to tell.
"Gwen thinks you're dating Hawkeye. Amy insisted it was Uncle Bruce." Peter took a bite of ice cream.
Steve dropped something in the kitchen.
Tony thought for a moment. "No," he said. He ate his cherry. "Bruce is great for my research, but while he's fun to tease I don't think he'd keep his temper around me too long. And Clint's quiet." He licked his lips. "Besides," he added to the kitchen, "I like my men in skin tight, spangly outfits."
"PETER IS RIGHT NEXT TO YOU," Steve shouted.
"Oh, go fondue," Peter mumbled loudly enough that only Tony heard.
Tony smirked into his ice cream. "Here's to you, kiddo," and he took another enormous bite.
"'...Didn't Iron Man announce that Spiderman was an Avenger?'" Someone on television was saying, "'It's ironic that this only surfaced now, right? I think it's Spiderman!'"
Peter dropped his spoon in the ice cream.
Tony blinked. He stared. "JARVIS," he said, "mute the television and turn on something else."
"Yes, sir," JARVIS answered.
Peter thought for a second, and leaned his head back and laughed. Tony laughed too. JARVIS started to play jazzy music from the loudspeakers. Tony leaned forward and ruffled Peter's hair as they laughed.
Tony paused, listening to the music. He set down his ice cream. "Steeeeve!" He yelled although Steve was right behind them in the kitchen. "Stop making ice cream! Dance with me!"
"In your armor?!" Steve stepped out of the kitchen and glared.
"Yes," Tony declared, and he held out his hand.
"It's going to melt," Steve said.
"It's Frank Sinatra," Tony insisted.
Steve looked at Tony. And he sighed. "Peter..." he attempted.
"Go on," Peter said, taking a bite of ice cream, "I have a concussion, I'm bored. I like it when you try to dance."
"I can dance!" Steve defended.
Tony nodded. He walked forward and took Steve's hands. "I'm sure you can," he cooed playfully.
"I will make you sleep on the couch."
"Try it. It's my bed you sleep on."
"I'm stronger then you."
"I'm Iron Man."
"I'm Captain America."
"...Hm... Peter likes me better than you," Tony smiled, "right Peter?" He began to move, slowly, side to side. Steve reluctantly matched his movements.
"Staying out of this," Peter said.
Steve frowned. He glared at Tony. "You like to embarrass me, don't you."
"I like seeing you uncomfortable," Tony confessed. "But you can be embarrassing too. Remember when you thought JARVIS was a person?"
Peter laughed.
"Shut up, Tony.-"
Tony laughed, and tried to twirl Steve, but Steve refused and stood still. "Come-"
"FUCK!" Peter dropped his bowl, the ice cream falling to the floor. He jumped up onto the couch. The cloth on his forehead fell as well.
"Peter!" Steve shouted.
"FUCK!" Peter repeated. He stared at the television. His face had turned white.
"What is it?" Steve ran to Peter's side.
"Pete," Tony looked at the television. He read the words. "Norman Osborn released from rehab? I admit I don't like the man, but-"
"He's..." Peter could hardly think. His heart was racing and his spider sense was on a dull alarm.
"Peter," Steve put a hand to Peter's forehead, "the concussio-"
"He's the Green Goblin!" Peter shouted.
Tony looked at Steve. Steve looked at Tony. "Who?" Tony asked.
"He's..." Peter swallowed. "Out."
"Well, he's an important man, isn't he?" Steve tried to remember. "Your friend, Harry or something, isn't that his father?"
Peter sucked in air, his spider sense was boiling and he clenched his teeth. "He's Spiderman's nemesis," Peter said, "the Green Goblin."
Tony thought for a moment and then chuckled. "Nemesis?"
"It's not a joke," Peter stood up. His spider sense was moaning in the back of his head, because his heart had jumped in its place. Not good. Last time he'd fought the Green Goblin... well, there had been a whole building in a certain place that wasn't there anymore. Before that, a bridge. Before that, they almost destroyed a crowd of people. Before that, a bus. Before that, well, the Green Goblin almost destroyed Peter's school, which was a pity, actually.
"While I may hate Norman Osborn on a business level, I don't think he," and Tony Stark kept talking while Peter listened.
They really didn't get it, did they? Not even Steve.
Peter wasn't just their kid, and he hadn't been their kid for most of his life. Peter Parker had existed long before Steve Rogers even woke up, and long before Iron Man was invented. And Spiderman? Spiderman predated the Avengers, half of the current mutant population, a good portion of superheroes, villains, and Peter's sixteenth birthday.
"I am not a sidekick," Peter said calmly.
Tony stopped rambling, and he looked at Peter. There was something in his eyes, the same indescribable look that Steve had as they let Peter talk.
"I am not just some teenager. I am not a rookie. I am not a kid in pajamas. I am not in the throes of teen angst. I am a superhero. I am Spiderman. If you can forget, for one moment, that you two are my legal guardians, can you remember how we first met? Remember that day in SHIELD? That one time you treated me as an equal? That was because you were judging me on what I'd done, not how old I was! I've been a hero just as long as you have, Dad!"
Tony Stark frowned. "I wasn't," he began.
"Peter," Steve stepped forward. He set his hand on Peter's shoulder and looked him in the eye. "I don't doubt you are a great superhero, I believe it and I am proud of it. I may not want you fighting villains all the time, but that is because I want you safe. I want you the strongest and the best you can be and even then I don't want you to fight. I'm not underestimating you, Peter, I trust you at my side. I think of you as an Avenger."
The weight of the seriousness in Steve's gaze, and the praise, caused a dark red blush to leak onto Peter's face. "Oh," Peter said.
"I know we haven't been in this position long," Steve continued, "but I feel like you have been my son forever. And like any father would, I want to keep you safe." Steve set his other hand on Peter's shoulder, calm, quiet, and said, "It's not easy for a parent to let a child go into harm's way. Tony and I know you're not invincible, we know you've been shot and hurt, and we also know that you are a thousand times more capable then we realize sometimes, but we can't block out the fact that it scares us."
"I'm sorry," Peter said.
"Listen," Steve compromised, "two months. Train with Natasha, me, and Agent Wessen for two months and leave the costume in the vault. After those two months, you can keep doing what you've always done, so long as Tony builds a phone into the costume and you call if you ever find yourself in too much trouble."
"Steve," Tony said.
"Alright," Peter agreed, his stomach sinking at the long wait but his mouth smiling at the prospect of finally, eventually, getting back in the game.
"And meanwhile, I'll assign some SHIELD agents to keep an eye on Norman Osborn," Steve decided. He turned to Tony and then smiled at Peter. "Let's watch a movie."
Tony hesitated for a moment, and then he shrugged. "As long as it's not 'The Wizard of Oz'."
A week of school. Where the bullying and the taunting and the homework and the schoolwork and the classes and the dullness and the world of crime going on without him to stop it and Uncle Ben's voice in his ear and Peter was close to exploding. It had all seemed so reasonable when Pops had explained it, but in reality, holding out for two months was wretched.
The old costume was in Peter's locker. It sat there, sewn up, slightly bloody, plain, skin tight cloth, glaring at Peter tempting him.
For three weeks.
The night Peter gave in was the night he met Deadpool.
"Just a swing," Peter mumbled. Because it had been so, so long since he had been a spider. His entire being hated it, hated being on land, hated the exposure, hated having to reign back his abilities.
Wallcrawling, that was the first. He crawled up the side of his school, his spider sense keeping him away from any preying eyes. Then he shot out his web shooter. The old formula wasn't the improved one Peter had made in the SHIELD lab, this was the old webbing he'd made in his basement. It felt comforting, even though it wasn't as strong and dissolved too easily in rain. Spiderman shot out a web toward a close building, stepped back, and jumped.
"YES!" Spiderman screamed, "YAHOO!" It was fucking glorious. His stomach dropped, his interstices churned, his mind was clear, and his spider brain took over. He sent out another web and headed south, and another, and another, until he was swinging through Manhattan heard a scream, and Spiderman immediately changed direction.
He dropped on top of an apartment building in the slums beside Yankee Stadium. There was another scream, Spiderman could identify it as being distinctly male. He crawled quickly down the building, silent and sheek, until his padded feet touched the ground. Another scream. Left. Spiderman ran. He stopped at an old, rotted door to what seemed to be an abandoned nightclub, and he quickly rushed down, his toes sloshing in liquid. "Oh, I do not want to know what I'm stepping in," he said. A scream, now a rough and grisly voice that definitely belonged to a woman, sounded out in this dark portion of town, and Spiderman stepped out of the yellow sunlight and into the grey building.
He was smooth enough that the door did not make a single creak, and he slid into the shadows the moment he stepped inside. There was a hallway that led to a larger room, so Spiderman crawled onto the roof and slinked his way forward to assess the situation.
A woman was tied to a chair, there was a stained towel in her mouth, that explained the rough and grisly town. A man holding a gun was standing over her, his arms shaking as he stared far away. A sound, a stomp, came from the right. The man immediately shot in that direction. "I'll waste her!" The man screamed, pointing the gun threateningly at the woman.
There was a crusted, deep, pained voice that resounded in the rusted nightclub. "Don't care," that odd voice said. "Do I? No. No, I don't care."
"You're insane!" The man with the gun yelled.
Spiderman, in the corner of the room, crouched on the roof, mumbled inaudibly to himself, "My thoughts exactly."
"Ted!" The man with the gun shouted.
"I killed your friend." The odd, crusted voice said without regret.
Spiderman's eyes widened. He had thought there was another hero here, what was going on?
"Ha!" The man with the gun jumped in confidence and fear, "that's where you're wrong! There were three of us!" His hands shook so badly on the gun he dropped it, and grabbed it again.
"Oh," the pained voice replied in a deep tone that was almost sing-song, "okay." There was the stomping of military grade boots. A man's scream. A shot. More stomping. "Ted died."
The man with the gun sputtered.
"That's enough," Spiderman jumped out of the shadows, positioning himself between the man with the gun and the bodiless voice. "Nobody else has to die. Just stop shooting, and let the girl go-"
There was a click, Peter realized his mistake just as the man with the gun, his enemy, readied the trigger. 'Dads', Spiderman flinched.
There was a cracking noise, and the woman screamed beneath her bindings.
Spiderman turned quickly, his eyes immediately registering two important things. First, the man with the gun was now the man with his head snapped and twisted one hundred and eighty degrees. Second, Deadpool stood over the body looking proud of himself.
Oh. Deadpool. That explained it.
Spiderman knew Deadpool's reputation.
"Hey," Deadpool said as the woman beside them hyperventilated in terror, "what does a spider do when he's angry?"
Spiderman took several, rapid, steps back. "Bite?" He ventured, holding his web shooters at the ready.
Grinning freakishly beneath his mask, Deadpool exclaimed, "He goes up the wall!"
Spiderman just blinked.
The woman fainted.
Deadpool looked at her and smiled to Peter. "I saved her from the perverts! She's Selena Van Dare, the heiress to massive fortune set to marry her love David, from the bad side of town, but her long lost identical twin sister Jenevive stole her identity and married David instead! Next episode is the big confrontation!"
Spiderman swallowed. "An actress?"
"My seventh favorite soup opera," Deadpool swooned on his feet. He jumped back to attention and Spiderman tensed. "Why are spiders like tops?!"
"What the-"
"They're always spinning!" Deadpool collapsed to the ground in pixels of laughter.
"S... Spinning webs?" Spiderman guessed.
Deadpool stopped, leaning on the guns at his thighs, and looked up at Spiderman. "Your ass looks nice from this angle."
Peter ran backward until he hit a wall. "Uh... Listen, I don't know exactly what is going on here but it feels like a one sided conversation-"
"Sh, Andrew Garfield, don't speak. Just friend me on facebook." Deadpool clasped his hands together and swung them to the sides like a tween girl, blood dropped from his right sleeve. "Spiderman, Spiderman, does whatever a Spiderman does..."
Spiderman sighed. Whatever happened, Deadpool had this covered. He was going to make sure the actress was safe, after all, without her the insane superhero couldn't find out the end to his soap opera. Besides, Deadpool was a superhero after all. He might not be one that any other superheroes would stab with a ten foot spear, but he was a superhero nonetheless.
"I'll... Go now," Peter said
Deadpool rushed forward, before Spiderman could register it, and grabbed his webbed hand. The spider sense didn't go off, so Spiderman stayed still. "Don't leave me!" Deadpool cried as if his heart was breaking.
"Yeah.. Um... Call me, maybe," Spiderman replied. He tried to get any by crawling up the wall, but Deadpool hung fast to his hand.
"You have to give me your number," Deadpool sang, "So here's my number...? Right?"
"Uh..."
Deadpool, the freakish, insane, murdering superhero, blushed and giggled.
"Oh my god," Spiderman tried again to free his hand. "Fine," he relented, "do you want me to write it down?"
"Yes!" Deadpool ran to the woman who had collapsed, found a pen in her pocket, and then tore up a floorboard and handed those to Spiderman to write on.
Spiderman did, wondering if he was signing his death warrant. "Do me a favor," Spiderman said as he looked down at Deadpool from his position on the wall.
"Ermagerd," Deadpool said, sticking out his hand in a very, gay or high school cheerleader/Liz Allen fashion, "like, five eveh."
Spiderman just ignored him, and said sternly, clearly, "Do not tell Iron Man or Captain America that you saw me."
"Kiss," Deadpool said, his voice gravely anger again.
"No."
Deadpool ripped the floorboard out of Spiderman's hands and stuck it under his skin tight uniform, making him look... odd. "Do you text?!"
"Yeah...?" Spiderman regretted this. Whatever he was doing, right now, he regretted it. He might not be sure what was going on, but it was weird. He scuttled toward the door.
"I'M YOUR FANBOY!" Deadpool called after him, "I'D HAVE YOUR OVERSIZED TARANTULA BABIES!"
The thought was terrifying. Spiderman, on a purely professional level, found Deadpool entertaining. Yes, he had killed the three men who had kidnapped the soap opera star to rape her and had almost killed Spiderman, but somehow, even if Spiderman disapproved of the killing, it didn't, exactly, bother him.
Maybe it was the fact Deadpool seemed like an oversized puppy.
With weapons.
And blood on his uniform.
And Peter's number on a plank of wood in his pants and-
Oh shit.