"The guy has issues."
Spider-Man frowned behind his mask, sure that Hawkeye could most likely see it to a degree. They had met up almost by chance, though Peter doubted it. Hawkeye didn't do accidental.
With too much time gone down the drain job hunting, Peter had taken to web-slinging to clear his head.
Now he was on a roof with Hawkeye, felt tired, trying to figure out his life – secret and public – and he was listening to an Avenger warning him off Deadpool.
Again.
And again.
"We all do."
The archer chuckled. "True, but his are way out of your league."
"So are Tony Stark's and I don't see you hightailing it out of Stark Tower."
Clint laughed. "Point," he agreed, shaking his head in clear amusement. "I gotta give it to you, though, you do bring out the best in Deadpool. And that means something when it comes to his kind of crazy."
Peter looked at the traffic below, then turned to focus on the Avenger again. "I treat him like a human being," he only said.
Barton was silent for a moment, then his expression softened somewhat. "Kid, he isn't human."
"He was born human. A preternatural human. So he is human. Whatever else happened to him, it wasn't his fault!"
"No, it wasn't."
"Then why do you keep pushing him over the edge?"
"Because he's unstable. More than all of the Avengers thrown together. We all have issues, yes, but he is truly gone, Spider-Man."
Peter felt a spike of anger at the words. Sure, he was often accused of trying to save everybody, had been told before that not everyone could be saved, but this time was different.
He could feel it on a level he couldn't explain.
Yes, Deadpool was a very deadly man, a trained killer, a weapon, but there was also something else in that cold, dark core. He was damaged goods, but he wasn't inhuman.
Peter knew it. It was like a different kind of spider sense. It wasn't just wishful thinking either. He wasn't stupid or too idealistic to see the harsh truth, understand what being a mercenary entailed.
No, he felt something, a small shiver going through his very soul whenever Deadpool was near now. Whenever the other man was calm, collected, so intensely focused on… him.
"What happened to him?" Peter demanded. "You have his file! Tell me!"
Clint was silent, fingers drifting along the bow resting on his lap. "You know what kind of preternatural he is?"
"Hellhound. Perfect soldier-type."
A nod. "Best there is. Wolves are too pack oriented to work alone, but the military loves them anyway. Hellhounds are special because they embody the tenaciousness of the wolf, the resiliency, but lack the shapeshifting. They heal faster, too."
"I know all that, Clint."
"You know they can be bonded to someone? For life?"
"I read about it."
"It's a trust exercise. Complete trust to the end. Hellhounds don't bond lightly. It's their ultimate gift."
Peter was silent, watching the tense set of Clint's shoulders.
"Tony hacked into the Weapon X program, got the files. And the videos. Stomach-turning, I can tell you. Deadpool… Wade Wilson… volunteered. He had cancer. Did you know?"
"He mentioned something."
"Yeah. It was bad enough that his own preternatural ability was helpless against it. Would have killed him. So he let himself be recruited and they made him into what he is today, but not without killing what he was. Tony said they gave him a cocktail of DNA-altering stuff, concocted to mix the best of the super- and preternatural world. Like a hybrid, just worse. He became this artificially produced individual with parts of several species grafted to his DNA. A chimera. Then they used his instinct to bond him to a handler."
"You can't force a bond," Peter scoffed.
It was one solid fact he knew about supers and preters. Those who were able to bond themselves to a mate, a partner, or, in some cases, a handler, couldn't force it, nor could they be forced.
"You apparently can by taking apart the DNA of a hellhound and putting it together as something new, like some freaking biogenetic puzzle." Hawkeye's expression was dark. "He stopped being Wade back then. Weapon X tried to create a soldier slave, a human weapon with all the abilities of various preters and supers, unkillable, and no own mind. They wanted to control every aspect of the chimera. Even the handler. Her name was Vanessa."
"Was?" Peter asked softly.
"They killed her when the bond was confirmed stable and solid. Then killed Wade. He came back. She didn't."
Peter felt a wave of nausea run through him at the cold, hard words.
"Hellhounds die when the handler does. They connection is so intense, so final. But Deadpool can no longer die. He came back," Hawkeye continued, voice almost monotone, eyes far away. "He came back and his bonded handler was gone. You see what happened to him. Aside from scarring his skin, Weapon X also took his soul."
Peter swallowed; hard.
"Makes him so good at what he does, being soulless."
"He isn't soulless!" he whispered immediately.
Hawkeye shot him a sad look. "He is, kid. He isn't normal anymore. Everything he was, everything that was Wade Wilson, was erased and made into Deadpool. His DNA is a cocktail of everything Weapon X could get their hands on. He's a chimera, something artificial that shouldn't have survived but did."
Spider-Man felt a hot surge of anger at the words. "He is a human being, Barton!"
"No. He's a total mess of all of what they cobbled together, with the added bonus of borderline insanity, because all the different creature traits mess him up even more. The healing factor tried to remedy that, but it's not working. He's a nutcase. That's what he is."
Renewed anger raced through him, red hot and filled with screaming outrage at the words. Deadpool wasn't a soulless, mindless tool to be discarded after use. He wasn't just the chimera; he was a human being! He was loyal and protective of those he chose. Yes, he sold his abilities and killed people… had killed people… but he listened to Peter.
He listened… not to an order. A request. Peter had never made it a command.
Something skittered through his mind, pushing that fact at him.
"No!" he now growled. "He's not! If he was, he wouldn't be able to change. And he is changing. He doesn't kill anymore."
"Because you told him?"
"Yes!"
Clint was silent, then his eyes widened a fraction. "Because you told him," he repeated.
"He listens. He wants to change! He's trying and it's hard, but he is," Peter insisted.
"He's a nightmare. The chimera is a nightmare that shouldn't exist. No one has an idea what his true abilities are, whether or not he has reached is limit. That's why he is so dangerous, kid!"
"Yes, he's dangerous and Deadpool does exist, against all odds! He tries to live the best life he can with all the shit that has been done to him! We're a good team and it's working."
Hawkeye smiled a little. "You're the first to say that about him. I know a few people who would rather shoot him on sight than work with him in any capacity again."
Spider-Man shot him an evil look, feeling the tension in his body. It infuriated him how others saw Deadpool. The man had been experimented on, for crying out loud! He was a victim!
Sure, he took getting used to, and maybe he was biased because of past events, that weird pull he felt, that gentleness, the intense protectiveness…
Peter exhaled sharply, forcing himself to relax. "You're not saying that about Cap or even Banner."
Clint blinked, then chuckled, shaking his head. "Human experiments, I get it. And Bruce was persona non grata for a while. The Hulk isn't a favorite either. Not even of Bruce's. Cap's just… Captain America."
"Who can do no wrong," Peter grumbled.
He liked the guy, looked up to him to a degree, but if all came down to DNA and how they came to be, Deadpool was no different. He had just started out on the losing side of the game.
"Listen, Spider-Man, I know you and Deadpool had this partnership running strongly, but he is and always will be a wild card. He might just turn around and shoot you one day, no questions asked, because someone took a hit out on you. Or because something inside his fucked-up DNA sparks up a storm, makes him lose it."
Nope, he wouldn't, Peter knew. Never. It was a line that couldn't be crossed. As for sudden outbursts of violence…
Peter remembered the two-way road he had so often experienced, the connection, that anchor line between them. Sometimes he thought he could just reach out, tug a little and bring Deadpool closer, back to him, away from the messy vortex of fragmented memories and blackened ruins.
"The chimera is something out of deep, dark myths and it's not natural," Clint repeated. "It could never form naturally. You can't trust anything he does, Spider-Man."
He said I ground him, Peter thought, catching himself from blurting it out loud.
I ground him.
I…
He almost rocked back.
Holy… insert swear word here.
He really had been slow. Private stress, the injury, worrying about his job, his security, it had all come together and really pulled the wool over his eyes.
It should have been so clear right from the start.
I ground him!
Him. Wade. Deadpool. The chimera. All of him. The touches, the nearness, the tactility. The bond between them, flimsy yet strong, unfinished and almost hesitant, and Peter looking into the abyss that Hawkeye was describing so vividly – and the abyss was watching with hungry eyes and sharp teeth.
Patiently.
"Gotta go," he whispered and shot out a webline.
He needed space.
To think.
SDSDSD
It really cleared his head to swing along the skyscrapers, the traffic below nothing but blurred lines.
I ground him.
He listens to me.
He trusts me.
But he can't… He told me he can't…!
Mind whirling, Spider-Man gracefully landed on the roof they, him and Deadpool, had so often shared food on.
No one was there.
In a way he was thankful for it.
The hellhound had bonded, had lost its handler and had died. The chimera wasn't even close to what it had been born out of. It was nothing of the like of a hellhound. Then again, who knew what a chimera was? It shouldn't be able to exist.
So it couldn't connect, right?
Then why did it feel like Peter was getting closer and closer to the preternatural creature that had come out of Weapon X's experiments?
SDSDSD
The sun set and the winds picked up. Peter was still on the roof, thoughts no longer tumbling all over, but he still didn't understand for real.
Could a hellhound who had lost his bonded and turned into something else find someone else?
And what did it mean for Deadpool if there was a chance? If that person was Peter Parker? How did the chimera know Peter was the one? Why him? Because he was Spider-Man? Because of the artificial mutation?
He didn't know who Spider-Man really was. They had never come close to showing more skin than was necessary to eat. Peter had seen the scars, comparing them to a burn victim. He knew Deadpool didn't show his face to anyone, hid behind the rather expressive mask, and he knew his name. And now a little more of his history.
That was all.
Wade Wilson knew even less about Spider-Man.
But Peter knew he had started on a path that was probably rather unhealthy for him. He had let someone inside his own soul, had started to trust in someone he knew so little about, but his instincts told him Deadpool was okay.
More than okay.
More than a friend.
Despite all the touching and crude jokes, the innuendo about his ass and other assets, Peter had started to fall for it. For him.
He had no idea what Deadpool looked like underneath that mask, aside from the chin up to the nose, as well as part of his throat, but he had developed feelings.
Like a blind date. A literal blind date.
He had been drawn to the impossible man and now… now he couldn't let go. He had been warned repeatedly, had been told to keep away from Deadpool.
Spider-Man… Peter Parker… couldn't.
He was human, with not a preternatural DNA strand in sight, but he was reacting to something that wasn't normal in a human. He was reacting to Deadpool, to the preternatural, to Wade Wilson; all of it. And he wanted the closeness.
All of it.
No matter what.
Peter scrubbed a hand over his face.
Fuck.
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
He wasn't a virgin in any sense of the word. He had had relationships, closer or sometimes more casual, and he had slept with women and men. Gwen had been his first love, and she had died because of him.
Ever since then he hadn't trusted anyone with anything more than his most surface persona.
Deadpool… knew more already than even Mary Jane did.
I ground him. Get a clue, Parker. I ground him and his messed up mind... and the chimera he is!
SDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSDSD
"Dude, you look like shit!"
Deadpool plopped down on the ancient chair and shot Weasel a scathing look. His best friend pushed a glass of a clear liquid across the table and Wade downed it without hesitation.
Alcohol didn't do anything to him. If it was poisoned he'd just pop back to life like a maniacal jack-in-the-box.
"Why, thanks, old friend. Always so nice to know what my partner in crime thinks of my fair complexion."
Weasel snorted and flapped a hand at him. "Not that. It's not like I get used to seeing it, but hey, time and all. In the right light I can almost not see you. But honestly, you look worse than usual. Not like you really can. Really. So, what gives?"
Wade leaned back, refusing to give in to his instinctual reaction to pull up the hood again at Weasel's words. His friend had known him for longer than anyone, had seen him before and after getting turned into a walking advertisement for crispy chicken and bad life choices. His words, while they stung, were also the most honest conversation Deadpool had.
Aside from people trying to shoot his face off when they saw what was underneath the mask.
Well, mostly they tried it with the mask on, too. The risk of being such an awesome assassin.
"I need a job."
Weasel frowned.
"Just something quick and dirty. Some time-out from the big city."
"You and Spidey having a spat?"
He glared at him.
"Huh." Weasel looked thoughtful. "What happened? Or maybe: what didn't happen?"
Deadpool looked icily at him, refusing to answer.
"Geez, man! Just because he got your panties in a bunch isn't the right reason to flee the country."
Wade felt the chimera growl angrily at the words. He didn't really want to leave, but the memories of what had happened on the roof, that instant grounding sensation each time they had been together…
Something was happening and it was getting worse every time he was around the younger man. His Spidey. His role model. The guy he admired and wanted to do good by.
He was opening up, saying things that were way out of line. Yes, he was usually out of line, but that was just verbal diarrhea.
This… this was more serious. Like really serious. He was spitting out private things, intimate things, and he felt himself reach for Spider-Man on a wholly different level. Touching him had become a necessity. Just feeling the physical connection had him unwind and relax on a whole new level.
Wade drummed his fingers on the table top.
"Something's happening," he said out loud.
"You're not sayin'."
He glared at Weasel, who looked rather unimpressed.
"Dude, you either spill it or suck it up and go on with your life."
"I think the chimera is trying to bond," he hissed through clenched teeth.
Weasel's eyes grew comically wide behind the lenses of his oversized glasses. His mouth opened, then snapped shut again with a high wheezing sound. He quickly grabbed a glass and downed the potent content in one swallow.
"Say what?!" he blurted, coughing as the alcohol burned on the way down.
Wade stared at him, hard.
Weasel's eyes watered slightly and he sniffed. "You can't bond, man! That part shriveled up and died with Vanessa!"
"I know," he grated, the old pain still there, though foggier. "Thank you for bringing it up again. Really! Nothing like tearing at the old scars and making them bleed, Weasel."
"And you're not a hellhound anymore!" the bartender continued like he hadn't heard him. "You're a fucking chimera and that's just a freaking melting pot of really volatile fury and pain, right?"
"I know!" he snapped angrily, exploding from the chair in such a display of volatile fury and pain. "I know all that and it's still there! I know what it feels like to want to connect, to give up part of your soul and share it with someone you trust! But that soul is a fucking pile of ash and primeval sludge!"
Weasel watched as if Deadpool was an extremely interesting specimen right now. A stupid one on top of that.
"And it still works."
Wade groaned and fell heavily onto the chair again. "It's him, Weasel! He's…"
"Special?" the other man asked after a moment of silence, twitching a grin.
"Human."
"Aren't we all?"
Wade expelled a breath, his mind in uproar, the chimera screeching.
"He has no idea what's happening," he snarled.
"Maybe he does. Ever thought about it? I mean, I'm only human and even I get it. Finding that perfect person. Well, a real person, not some made-to-order handler. Twice in your lifetime, which, in your case…" He fell silent at Wade's death glare. "If he's a potential partner… go for it?"
"Have you taken a look at this lately?" Deadpool gestured at his face. "That's not just the beautiful wrapping that you peel off and keep in a special place. That's everything right there, on display for all the world to see. Nothing different on the inside! Ugly as fuck, dead and gone!"
"You're not dead, Wade. Just a hard to look at motherfucker with issues up the wazoo."
"And I'm not going to force him into this life of fugly and crude!" he snarled. "Do you know what bonding means?"
"Who says you're forcing anything, man? Bonds can't be forced."
"With the right drugs they can."
"Are you on drugs?"
"No!"
"Is he?"
"Shut up, Weasel!"
"You started it, dude." Weasel leaned forward, arms resting on the table. "Did your Spiderboy ever really see you?"
Wade took a long pull from the bottle, making Weasel sigh in exasperation.
"Keep it," his friend just said. "And I think that's a big, fat no concerning Spideyboy knowing what you look like under the mask?"
He glared.
"So what if you don't show him and bond anyway? If that's what you feel?"
"Won't work like that."
"How do you know? You're no longer a hellhound. You're a chimera, right? Just take what you want."
Deadpool slammed his hands onto the table, startling Weasel a little. "I won't force this! Never! You can't fore a bond! And I'm not going to just take his body either! I'm not a monster! Not that kind of monster!"
It got him a small smile. "Yeah. 'Cause you care about that kid, right? There's a lot of firsts in there already, dude. Make up your mind. Before your preter side does it for you."
Deadpool pulled up the hood and left, hands pushed into the pockets, head down.
He needed space. He would prefer a job, away from NYC, but a part of him balked at leaving his little spider alone.
Suck it up, he told himself. It's nothing. It'll pass.
But he was so wrong.
It didn't pass.
It got worse.
tbc...