Three rounds of 'I spy' later, and Deadpool has gotten tired of playing with Matt only to get various creatively worded expletives thrown in his face.
"How about you, Spider-Man?" Deadpool asks, poking Peter in the shoulder. "What do you spy with your gigantic white eyes?"
Peter looks up at him and sighs before thumping his head back against the wall. Over the past thirty minutes, his opinion of Deadpool has gone from 'super cool anti-hero' to simply 'who the fuck knows?'. "I certainly don't spy a cab," Peter snarks back, smiling when Matt laughs at that.
They've been chilling in the alley for close to thirty minutes waiting for a cab driver who Deadpool knows will pick them up, no questions asked, despite the fact that Matt has helpfully informed them that the police have an APB out on Deadpool. Deadpool had simply smiled and pulled out a small piece of paper to add a tally mark on the already half-filled backside. Peter didn't ask, and he didn't know if Matt noticed. If he did, he didn't say anything.
"Oooh, sassy. I like it," Deadpool compliments. "But incorrect. Riiight there," he adds, pointing to an obnoxious yellow sedan that's cruising down the street at a suspiciously slow pace.
Deadpool steps out of the shadows of the alley and into the street, waving at the cab, which immediately heads for them. It rolls to a stop, and Deadpool opens the door with a flourish indicating for Peter to climb in first, which he does, followed by Matt, and then lastly, Deadpool. There's Bollywood music playing very faintly over the speakers, and the cab smells like air fresheners and blood which, if Deadpool is in it often, is probably about as could be reasonably expected.
"Hi, Mr. Pool," the cab driver says in an accent thicker than Peter expected, turning in his seat to wave at Deadpool, who waves back. "Mr. Devil," he adds. Matt only gives a short nod in response. "And Mr. Man."
It takes Peter a hot second to realize that he, Spider-Man, is being called Mr. Man. When he finally realizes this, he gives a small wave and smiles under the mask, trying not to laugh.
"This is Dopinder," Wade introduces them to the driver as he leans across Matt and practically lays on him in the process. "Do you need a booster seat?" he stage-whispers to Peter.
Peter just stares at him blankly.
"I'll take that as a no," Deadpool whispers again, leaning back out of Matt's personal space to put on his seatbelt.
Peter puts on his seatbelt too, as does Matt, once the driver steps on the gas.
Deadpool keeps up a string of inane babbling for a surprisingly long amount of time before Matt finally just puts his hand over Deadpool's mouth. There's a moment of silence where Deadpool and Matt just stare at each other.
"You know," comes Deadpool's muffled voice after a minute, "licking someone's hand is a lot more effective when you're not wearing a mask."
"Even if you weren't wearing a mask, I still have gloves on," Matt points out.
Peter has a hunch that Deadpool rolls his eyes at that, of course, he can't tell because of the freaky white lenses that cover his eyes. Peter thinks that even though he has white lenses too, they're much less scary thanks to the fact that they're big and cartoonish.
Peter stops contemplating costume similarities between himself and Deadpool, and tunes back into his surroundings when he feels Matt twitching beside him.
"… and we can beat people up together every night," Deadpool continues from whatever he's been ranting about, half draped across Matt.
Matt does not look happy about this.
"Dude," Peter snaps, giving his best angry look at Deadpool. He misses the way the eyes on the Stark suit narrowed, mirroring his own, but hopefully, his tone of voice still gets the point across. "Back off of him. He's not interested."
Deadpool looks shocked.
Matt looks vaguely irritated at Peter for just a second before he sighs. "Spider-Man, thank you, but I can handle myself. Deadpool knows exactly what happens when he actually oversteps my boundaries."
Peter contemplates the look of irritation more than the words and wonders if he would've stepped in like that had he not known that Matt is blind. He cringes a little at the realization that he probably wouldn't have said a word.
"He broke my whole hand one time," Deadpool supplies cheerfully, and not at all like someone who's testing their limits with a person who has caused them severe bodily harm for doing just that in the past.
"And I'll gladly do it again if you push it too far," Matt says sweetly.
Peter does not understand their dynamic.
"But I thought you said you hated the sound of my bones healing on super-speed."
"Not as much as I love hearing the sound of them breaking."
Peter really does not understand their dynamic.
The cab finally stops a block away from Mount Sinai West, and the driver turns in his seat to hold up his hand which Deadpool quickly slaps with a high-five.
"See you around, Brown Bear," Deadpool calls, blowing a kiss that Dopinder mimes catching and putting into the front pocket of his shirt.
"You too, DP," Dopinder says. "And you, DD. And you, SM."
Once they're all out of the car, Deadpool looks to Peter. "You know, if any one of us was going to have the initials S and M, I would've put my money on the one of us dressed for a bondage scene," he says, tilting his head to where Matt is standing.
"Interesting jab coming from the guy in the gimp suit," Matt shoots back, and Peter chokes. He's not sure how Matt knows what a gimp suit looks like, or how he knows what Deadpool's suit looks like, and he doesn't really want to ask.
"Wow, I'm hurt. This is clearly much better quality than your run-of-the-mill gimp suit. You gonna take my word for that, or do you wanna feel it?" Deadpool says suggestively.
"I could feel your hand breaking again," Matt deadpans.
"Burn ward is right there if you're tired of getting roasted," Peter mutters, jumping slightly when Matt full on cackles.
"Yeah, maybe you should go to the burn ward, Wade," Matt says, with a grin plastered on his face that has absolutely no right to be nearly as charming as it is.
"Maybe you should go to the eye doctor," Wade shoots back, though there isn't any venom behind either of their words.
Well, that settles it. Peter wasn't quite sure if Wade, apparently, knew Matt's identity (the driving comments earlier made him think probably), but that solidifies it. Now he's just curious about why Deadpool should go to a burn ward.
"Guys, not that I'm not, uh, incredibly entertained by everything that's happening right here," Peter says, gesturing between the two vigilantes, "but shouldn't we be going after this guy whose name you got? A name you guys haven't even bothered telling me, might I add."
"Whoops," Deadpool says. "Yep, focusing on that now. His name's Daniel Adams, and he's the executive director of the hospital. Apparently, he's the guy your cops were in contact with."
Peter wants to say 'they're not my cops' for a second before he realizes, yes, they are his cops. And it's his case too, dammit.
"And we're hiding in the alley behind the hospital, stalking him on Snapchat and in real life because..?" Peter says.
"Because we need answers from him," Matt replies simply.
"So you're gonna, what? Follow him home? Wait till he's passing a particularly dark alley? Drag him down it and see how many bones you have to break to get another name? Then go do the same to the next guy?" Peter asks, and there's a hint of anger simmering beneath his skin now in a way that's palpable to both Matt and Deadpool, probably from the way he's tensed up from head to toe.
"We'll do what we need to if he doesn't wanna talk to us. That's kinda how it is in this business," Deadpool says, and for once Peter's the one growling.
"No," he says firmly. "This is my case, and I'm not going to let either of you torture another living, breathing person for answers on it They are people. They have rights, and you should know that better than the average person, Daredevil. I told Aelisha that I'd help her find Angela, and I will. Now I'm going to find Aelisha too. I spent the longest thirty minutes of my life listening to two men scream while you broke their bones for a name. You guys can do whatever the hell it is you want when you're working on your own shit, but this? This is my shit, and if either of you tries to lay a hand on another person while you're working with me, guilty or not, it'll be the last thing you ever do with that hand. Am I clear on that?"
Matt's looking at him thoughtfully, and Peter keeps his chin high and his fists at his sides as he stares back. He doesn't want a fight, but he was serious about his threat.
"Okay," Matt says finally.
"O…kay?" Peter responds in a stunned echo. That was not the response he was expecting, and it catches him off-guard.
"You're right," Matt says with a shrug. "This is your case. You get to set the rules."
Peter looks to Deadpool for confirmation, and the man gives a shrug of his own. "I mean, it's kinda like the Pirate Code," he explains. "If you invite someone else to work your gig, they generally follow your guidelines. It's why Castle doesn't kill when he works with Red, and why he does kill when Red works with him."
Huh. Well, that does make sense he supposes.
"Well, good. Glad that's settled," Peter says with a nod, finally relaxing slightly.
"Well then, team leader," Deadpool says in a way that somehow doesn't come across as sarcastic. "What's our next move?"
Peter bites his lip for a moment, thinking of the best way he can go about this. He knows he's new and inexperienced, and he doesn't want to make a fool of himself after he's just outlawed their most effective way of getting what they need. "We're gonna do surveillance," he decides after a minute, nodding as if it'll solidify the slight waver in his voice. When Matt cracks a small smile, he realizes it's a good choice and repeats himself. "We're gonna do surveillance on this guy to figure out two things. One, if he's involved by choice or by force, and two, what the best way to get information from him is going to be. Maybe he'll be really dumb with technology and have everything in a poorly secured email."
Deadpool snorts at that, but judging off his body language, it seems like a fond snort, not a 'you're a naïve idiot' snort. "Alright. So, surveillance. Where do you think we should start with this?"
Peter feels like he's being given a pop quiz in a class he hadn't realized he was taking. "Umm… well, he's the executive director of the hospital, right?"
Deadpool and Matt both nod.
"Well, that's kind of an important role. So there's probably some video on the internet of him giving a speech or something," Peter says slowly, thinking as he speaks. "Deadpool, you're the only one of us with an internet connection right now, so you look for a video of him talking."
"Aye aye, Captain," Deadpool says before pulling his phone back out to do just that. For someone so knowledgeable about Snapchat, he still types like an old person.
Two minutes later, Deadpool has a Youtube video pulled up on his phone of one Daniel Adams giving a speech at some fundraising banquet.
"Alright Daredevil. Listen to his voice, and then see if you can match it to anyone in the hospital right now. If we're not close enough then we can move to the hospital roof and try from there," Peter says.
"Alright. It'll take me a while; especially if he isn't talking at the moment," Matt replies before nodding for Deadpool to play the video.
They listen to it four times before Matt's confident enough in his ability to recognize the man's voice that searching for him via listening is a viable option. Matt tilts his head in various ways for a minute before he shakes his head. "We're too far. You two can stay here, I'll head over to the roof. No offense, but I'm better at not being noticed than either of you," he adds, when he can tell there's about to be a protest from Deadpool and Peter about being left behind. "I'll call you guys the second I find him, and then you can come over. The longer we can keep three costumed vigilantes off the roof of the building, the longer we can go without being spotted."
And with that, Matt's off like a shot, running damn near straight up the wall of the alley they've been chilling in since they got out of the cab. He grabs the bottom edge of a fire escape and swings up onto it almost effortlessly before continuing up to the roof. He's out of sight shortly after that, so Peter turns to Deadpool who is now sitting on top of a nearby dumpster, his legs hanging off the edge and swinging along with the tune he's whistling. It's familiar, but Peter can't quite place it.
"So," Deadpool says suddenly, interrupting his song, "are the webs, like, from your body?"
"Oh, um, no," Peter stammers out, a little bit caught off-guard by both the question and the fact that he's alone in an alley with an unkillable assassin whom someone once tried to pay to kill him. "No, I make the web fluid in a lab. It goes into the shooters," he explains, hopping up to sit next to Deadpool on the dumpster. He holds his hand out to Deadpool, palm up so that he can see the mechanism. "I press the button there to shoot the web."
Deadpool leans in closer to inspect the web shooters, and once he sits back he gives Peter a highly suspicious look. "You built this?" he asks.
"Yeah, they're the originals, but I'm working on a new set now," Peter explains.
"And the webs? That shit's your own unique chemical composition?"
Peter nods.
"You're fifteen."
Peter nods again.
Deadpool's quiet for a moment as he just stares at Peter. The white lenses really are freaky. "You're clearly a genius, so how the hell did you get yourself mixed up in all this shit?" he finally asks, gesturing widely.
"What shit?" Peter asks because he's not quite ready to accept the compliment of being called a genius, even if it's from a crazy guy.
"The superhero shit, man!"
"Oh," Peter says. He has a good reason. He has a dead uncle and words left with him that motivate him to do the right thing. But that doesn't mean he's about to spill his guts to Deadpool about great power and great responsibility in an alleyway. "I um… got bitten by a… a radioactive spider."
"A—what the shit?" Deadpool asks, slumping in defeat. "The fuck is with you kids nowadays? Can't any of you get your powers through good ol' human experimentation, or is that out of fashion now?"
"I don't think human experimentation was ever in fashion," Peter points out. "Plus it's illegal."
Deadpool sighs and runs a hand over the top of his head. "You're a vigilante; hate to break it to you kid, but you're already doing the illegal."
Deadpool's phone starts ringing a second later, and he answers it immediately. "Yes, honey?"
Peter can hear Matt's voice on the other end of the call from where he's sitting. "He's about to leave the building, heading for the parking garage around back. Both of you meet me there, now." Matt hangs up abruptly after that, and Deadpool puts his phone away.
"Alright kid, we're going to the parking garage," Deadpool says, standing up on top of the dumpster before making the jump to grab the bottom edge of the fire escape and pull himself up.
Peter watches him for a moment, before simply walking straight up the wall just a few feet away from where Deadpool is.
They make it to the roof of the garage where Matt is already waiting, crouched down in a shadowed area on the edge of the roof like a particularly menacing gargoyle.
"He still here?" Deadpool asks as they walk over to Matt.
"Yeah, he's still waiting for the elevator," Matt replies, before turning his head towards Peter and Deadpool. Peter knows that Matt doesn't need to look in their direction to see—well—sense them, so he wonders if Matt's simply developed the habit to throw people off his trail for being blind. "It might be harder for me and Wade to keep up with him, so I want you to follow him, Spider-Man. I'll tell you which car is his when it pulls out, and then we'll go break into his office while you tail him."
Peter's heart flutters a little that Matt's trusting him to be the one who follows the guy, all contemplation about the man's disability instantly wiped from his thoughts. "Alright. I'll call you guys and tell you where he stops," he assures, trying to sound cool and just barely succeeding.
"Great." Matt tilts his head for a second. "Okay, he's started driving out. He's heading down and…there," Matt says, pointing down at an obnoxious black sports car that shares more than a fair resemblance to the batmobile.
"I'm on it," Peter says, jumping off the edge of the roof and shooting a web to the building across the street as the car guns it down 58th.
Peter doesn't often find himself swinging around this part of Manhattan, so it's a bit more of a struggle to keep up with the guy than he'd expected. Their mark has clearly watched too many Fast and Furious movies, judging by the way he incessantly revs his engine and even actually drifts on a few turns. Asshole.
Eventually, the guy pulls off the street and into the garage of an incredibly nice looking apartment building. Peter waits around for a few minutes before it becomes apparent that Daniel Adams is staying in tonight. He pulls out his phone and calls Matt's burner, listening to it ring for a few seconds before he answers.
"He's at his apartment," Peter says. "Some weird looking double-towered building off West End Avenue."
"West End Towers," Deadpool's voice replies. "Any idea which unit he's in?"
"Uh, I couldn't exactly stealthily follow him inside dressed like this. So, no," Peter says, once again caught off-guard by Deadpool. He hopes that isn't going to become a common occurrence. "Did you guys find anything in his office?"
"We found his internet search history," Deadpool says. "And beneath all the porn, I actually found something that might be of importance to us. Red says to meet back at his place. Roof access is—"
"Unlocked," Peter says. "Like it always is. He's gonna get robbed one of these days."
"That's what I keep telling him!" Deadpool says.
"I don't have anything worth stealing," Matt says, and Peter can hear that he's at least a few feet away from the phone.
"Whatever you say. See you there," Peter replies before hanging up.
It takes him longer than he'd like to admit to figure out how exactly to get to Matt's apartment from the West End, but eventually, he figures it out and makes his way to the familiar building. He lands on the roof with a slightly poorly executed roll before hopping up and making sure nobody's watching him. Once he's sure the coast is clear, he enters Matt's apartment and finds both Deadpool and Matt sitting on the couch.
"Spidey!" Deadpool says. "How'd it go?"
"Fine. He drives worse than Daredevil does, though."
Deadpool snorts. "Now, I find that hard to believe."
"Believe what you want," Peter says with a shrug before coming to sit on the chair by the couch. "So what'd you guys find?"
"Thank you for asking, young spiderling," Deadpool says. "We found out that dear Mr. Adams recently purchased an incredibly secure safe. I'm talking shit I couldn't get into without a couple of pounds of C4. It was sent to the hospital, but it's sure as hell not in this office, so it must be at his place."
"Oh?"
"So what we're assuming," Matt says, "is that he's keeping something he doesn't want anyone to know about in this safe. It's also a lot more expensive than he should be able to afford, even with his salary."
"Alright, awesome. So we just have to figure out which apartment is his, and get in and get the safe. But how are we gonna get into the safe?"
"I can crack it," Matt answers. "Nothing's secure when you can hear tumblers clicking as easily as I can."
"Great," Peter says with a smile. The plan is falling into place surprisingly well, and they didn't even need to torture anyone to get this information! "Leave it to me to figure out a way to get you into the apartment."
Deadpool looks like he wants to protest, but Matt lays a hand on his shoulder to stop him. "It's his case; he calls the shots," he says to Deadpool before turning to Peter. "Let us know as soon as you have something."
"I will."
The next day, Peter wakes up to a text message from a number he doesn't have saved. It's a screenshot of a Snapchat photo taken out of a window to show the sunrise over the city and the words, "Mornings like these" typed over it. There's another message sent after that, and it simply contains a spider emoji.
Peter knows instantly that he can do a lot with this picture. There's a bit of the guy's living room reflected in the glass of the window, and Peter's going to guess that not a lot of people in the building have bright red couches and huge art nouveau sculptures in their apartments. What's more, he can narrow down what floor the guy's apartment is on by going on Google maps, and looking at 3D rendered satellite images on the street. He can't get the exact angles that the buildings he's seeing are at in relation to Daniel Adams' apartment, but he knows the side of the building and the general height, and that's enough for him to get started.
Unlike Daredevil, Spider-Man doesn't just work nights, so Peter grabs the suit and shoves it into his backpack before heading to Manhattan. He finds a relatively secluded alley to change into the suit and stash his backpack in before heading off. Spider-Man in Manhattan isn't an unusual sight, but it's still not nearly as common as Spider-Man in Queens. When he's in Manhattan he usually sticks to the Upper East Side, so to avoid drawing attention to his behavior changing to check out a new area, he decides to spend a few hours swinging around the whole island, including some time spent at West End Towers.
He has his phone with him to reference the image the person (who he's assuming is Deadpool) sent to him - and thank God Melvin made the gloves still usable with touchscreens. It takes him a few swings around the building, but eventually, he finds the apartment, and the décor is truly abysmal. It looks like HGTV had a baby with a seventies porn set. Once he's confirmed it's the right apartment, Peter makes a note that while it isn't a penthouse, it is the fourth row of windows from the top of the building. Even more helpfully, it happens to be a corner apartment. With the Spider-stalking done, Peter takes the scenic route back to where his backpack is hidden and changes back into his normal clothes before making his way back to the apartment building.
Once he's at the building, he waits until a group of women with their children head into the building and fades into the crowd to make it past the doorman without being detected. Thankfully the khakis and sweater over a collared shirt are preppy enough that nobody questions whether or not he should be there. He presses the button of the elevator that'll take him to the floor he scoped out earlier, and sure enough, all the soccer moms and soccer children get off the elevator before him with polite smiles. When he walks down the hall towards where he knows the apartment is going to be, Peter realizes something very unfortunate. There are three cameras in the hallway. It won't be fun to make it around those, but it's still probably doable.
Peter comes to a halt when he gets a look at the door he's been approaching. It looks like it belongs in a bunker. Two deadbolts and a handle with another lock adorn the metal door. There's also a keypad lock and a camera on the door. Peter very abruptly turns and walks back to the elevator, because he knows he is not getting into the apartment undetected and he doesn't want his face on the guy's door camera. Anyone paranoid enough to have home security like that is definitely paranoid enough to go back and watch the footage.
He's pretty sure there isn't a way into the apartment unless Daniel Adams lets them in. And unless they torture him into submission, Peter has no idea how they'll get him to do that.
No. No. He isn't going to let another man be disfigured or maimed or traumatized, no matter how shitty he may be, just so they can get answers. He became Spider-Man to help people, and although helping people sometimes can involve punching bad guys, it in no way, shape, or form requires him to torture and abuse people in order to get them to conform to his will. Hell no. He'll just have to find another way.
At that moment, karma happens to be on Peter's side because just as he's getting back on the elevator, he hears a man's voice from the hallway.
"Hey- hold the doors!" he calls, and Peter does because he's a good person and because the man calling for him to hold the doors is Daniel Adams. He's a bit older and a bit greasier, but it's undoubtedly the same man as the one from the video that he and Deadpool had Matt listen to the night before.
"Thanks," Adams says as he gets on the elevator, pressing the button for the ground floor even though Peter has already pressed it.
He's about six feet tall, and he has the body of a man going through his midlife crisis, meaning he's both fat and heavily muscled. Though, Peter can tell he's definitely been skipping leg day.
"You're welcome," Peter replies despite the way he feels somehow slimier just from breathing the same air as this guy. The Spidey-sense doesn't like Daniel Adams, and neither does Peter.
The ride in the elevator is silent from that point on, and they stop at a few different floors for other people to get on. Peter feels weird and out of place around all these casually wealthy people. There's absolutely nothing wrong with dressing nice, but there's just something off-putting about being around women who throw on a seven-hundred-dollar necklace with their yoga pants, and men who wear ten thousand dollar watches to run errands.
Once they get to the ground floor, Peter runs his thumbs along the inner side of his backpack straps and steps off the elevator behind Daniel Adams. The man's talking on his phone with a Bluetooth earpiece (seriously man, you use Snapchat, but you don't have Airpods? Decide whether you want to be old or not already) and scrolling through his phone with one hand. Peter's not even that sneaky, and it's still laughably easy to follow behind this guy at a distance of about fifteen feet. Thanks to his abilities, he can still observe the man just as well as if he were five feet away.
They walk for a while, and the man's call ends after about eight minutes—something boring about insurance that Peter can't even begin to comprehend. After that, Peter just listens to the sound of the guy's ugly dad sneakers smacking on the sidewalk. He stops to get coffee from some minimalist bakery with maximalist prices, and Peter takes that time to pull off his sweater and shove it into his backpack as well as open his button-up shirt to show the dumb graphic tee underneath. He's hoping for a disguise like the ones Captain Rogers uses religiously, but he only has sunglasses and no hat, so he just has to go with what he's got.
The man comes out of the café a minute later, and Peter resumes tailing him. It's getting to be around seven in the evening; Peter hadn't told May where he went that morning, but he figures she won't worry too much since it's a Saturday and she knows (vaguely) what Spider-Man's been up to lately.
After a while longer, Peter's getting bored enough with his mark that he almost misses it when the guy answers his phone and swiftly steps into a nearby alley. Peter stops quick enough that someone runs into him and mutters an insult under their breath, but he ignores it as he hides near the entrance of the alley to listen to the conversation the man's having. He's close enough that he can hear both ends of the call, even if the one coming through the phone's speaker (thank God that Adams ditched the Bluetooth earpiece) is a bit crackly and muffled. As a woman stumbles by him, already drunk, Peter realizes that they're in Hell's Kitchen- one of the worse parts, at that.
"I don't care," Adams snarls into his phone.
"But—"
"No. I told them they could take people who wouldn't be missed."
Peter feels his heart skip a beat.
"If they fucked up," Adams continues, "and took people they shouldn't have, that's on them."
"It was one time. Don't you thi—"
"One time?" he hisses. "One time? No, you idiots have been doing it all over the city. That crackhead they snatched from Elmhurst in Queens? We had to get someone to take care of her sister who was putting up fucking posters. The junkie you picked up from Metro General? His fiancée hired a goddamn PI to find him."
"Two people. That's not bad for how many we've gotten away with, you have to admit."
"I'd be fucking fine with it if it was just two people. But your idiots over in Harlem left two more for the cops to find when they were supposed to clear out and guess what?"
"What?"
"Luke Cage found them. Our guys from the 114th? The ones who dealt with the crackhead's sister? Deadpool got to 'em. The PI? She's another fucking super. I got some asshole in Chinatown wearing a mask and beating the shit out of our long distance suppliers looking for some girl who we may or may not have. So you idiot grunts are getting the boss on a radar he doesn't need to be on. You spread the word—any one of you foot soldiers fuck up again, and I'll use you to fill Sinai West's quota. Don't call me here again." Adams hangs up, and Peter finds himself glued to the brick wall in shock.
When the man storms out of the alley, Peter forces himself to keep following at a reasonable distance, and he only stops when Adams walks into a building within neon lights and thumping music Peter can hear from the street.
It's a club.
A club decked out with rainbow flags and posters advertising drag queens.
Peter knows that his babyfaced self isn't getting into the building under any circumstances, and with the bomb that's just been dropped on him, all he can think to do is send a message to the people involved. He opens up the group chat with shaking hands.
7:39PM
You: ALL OF YOU GO TO MATT'S PLACE RIGHT THE FUCK NOW BIG SHIT JUST HAPPENED BE THERE ASAP ROOF ACCESS IS PROBABLY UNLOCKED CAUSE HE'S A DUMBASS
Peter immediately opens up the text chat from the unknown number earlier. He's almost certain it's Deadpool, so he sends a message with similar wording and tone before sprinting into a nearby alley to change into the suit. He missteps and almost falls flat on his face, but the adrenaline keeps him moving just as quickly. As soon as he's shoved his clothes into his backpack and zipped it up, Peter swings off in the direction of Matt's apartment. It's on the other side of the Kitchen, but he's still pretty sure he'll make it there before Danny does. He's assuming that Danny was the 'asshole in Chinatown wearing a mask' at least.
While he's racing across rooftops and swinging across alleys, he can feel his phone buzzing as texts start coming back to him, probably from a group of concerned vigilantes, but he doesn't care. He just focuses on getting to Matt's apartment so that he can catch everyone up to the massive conspiracy he's managed to stumble upon. Unfortunately, Peter's concentration is broken when he sees a man following a woman into an alley as he swings past another street full of loud clubs and bars. She's stumbling, either because she's drunk or wearing five-inch heels, he can't tell, but he knows that he can't not help her. However, once he's made up his mind to offer assistance and is already preparing to drop off the edge of the building to help, he spots someone on a fire escape in the alley.
Someone wearing red leather and horns.
Daredevil jumps down into the alley and plants a kick right in the middle of the man's chest that sends him down to the ground in a flash. The girl runs away the second the fight starts, and before Matt can break any more of the would-be rapist's bones than he already has, Peter drops down next to him.
"Daredevil!" he calls just as Matt snaps the guy's wrist with a sickening noise that reminds Peter all too much of what Matt had done the night before to those cops.
Matt drops the man immediately and turns his head to Peter. "Spider-Man? What is it?" he asks, pitching his voice low and gravelly for their audience that consists of a single predator now whimpering on the ground like a child.
Peter wants to comment on the Daredevil voice, but this is too vital to waste time on throwaway jabs. "Your place, right now. See you there," he says before swinging off again.
Peter still isn't a master of geography, so he gets slightly lost on his way to Matt's apartment yet again. Sue him. Ten minutes after his run-in with Matt, he stumbles through the man's roof access door after five or six wrong turns, panting hard from the exertion of exercise and adrenaline of cracking the case wide open.
The lights are on for once, and Peter's surprised to see Frank, Jessica, and Deadpool already there alongside Matt, who's still suited up. Jessica and Deadpool are sitting on the couch with relaxed postures while Frank is standing by the window, giving Matt a run for his money with his brooding vigilante schtick. It's definitely helped along by the red light shining in from the billboard, like the city symbolically painting him with the blood he's spilled in its streets—nevermind, the light has shifted to a much less menacing magenta.
"I'm just saying, you two match with all the red leather," Jessica is saying as she gestures between Matt and Deadpool before her head snaps up at the sound of the door slamming open. She tenses up for just a moment before she realizes that it's just Peter, and not some villain of the week. "Now I'm gonna say all three of you match with the red leather."
"Spider-Man, what's going on?" Matt asks as Peter pretty much flies down the rickety stairs to join them all in the living room. The adrenaline is starting to wear off a little, so he's feeling less energetic and more shaky.
"Are Danny and Luke coming?" he asks, ignoring Matt's question.
"Yeah, Luke should be here any minute, and Danny's on his way with Colleen. Why?" Jessica says. She has a concerned look on her face that looks like part of a matching set next to Matt and Frank.
"I'd rather not explain everything twice. Let's just wait for them," Peter says as he drops his backpack on Matt's floor and sits down in the armchair he'd once had a panic attack in. He might have another if it weren't for all the people in the room. It's at that moment that Peter really registers that Frank is there. He's not even involved in any of the mess. "Oh shit, sorry Mr. Castle," he blurts out. "I totally forgot you were in the group chat—I don't think this one actually involves you."
There's a sharp intake of breath from Jessica, Frank and Matt the moment the words 'group chat' exit Peter's mouth. He only has to wonder why that is for a fraction of a second.
"There's a group chat?!" Deadpool gasps, scandalized. "And I'm not in it?!"
Whoops.
Thankfully, before there can be any more 'woe is me' moaning on Deadpool's part, Luke slams open the roof access door, looking more than a little bit panicked as he makes his way down the stairs. That can probably be blamed on Peter's cryptic, all caps, emergency text.
Everyone's heads shoot up when Luke enters the apartment, and all at once they greet him with, "Hey, Luke." It's weird and unplanned and gives the vague notion of an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Peter knows Jessica should probably go to AA, and judging by the truly impressive range of half-empty liquor bottles on one of the shelves, along with the three completely empty ones in a recycling bin, Matt might need to attend as well.
Luke shoots a funny look at the entire colorful cast of characters in the room before his eyes settle on Peter. "What's going on?"
"We're waiting for Danny, then he'll explain. Said he doesn't wanna go through it all twice," Frank says with a shrug. "Apparently, I don't need to be here, but I'm here already so I might as well stay. I'm actually kinda interested in figuring out what shit you guys managed to get into. Also, maybe if I'm here to help nobody will get left in the basement of a collapsing building this time." There's definitely a hint of bitterness in those words, and the looks on people's faces range from confused, (Peter) to upset, (Luke) to angry, (Jessica) to completely unreadable because of a mask (Deadpool).
Matt looks incredibly heartbroken for just a fraction of a second before he's got that steely poker face back on. "Now's really not the time, Frank," he says in a warning tone.
"Neither was the last time," Frank shoots back.
"Well, maybe it'll never be the time," Matt snaps, losing the remainder of his cool pretty quickly.
"Look, Red—"
"Drop it, Castle," Matt hisses dangerously. "You're not my fucking priest; I'm not gonna fucking talk about it."
Peter casts a glance at Luke, who now just looks guilty. Maybe all of that enigmatic arguing has something to do with what Luke was talking about when he told Peter that the city had broken Matt down.
Thankfully, Deadpool's there to break the awkward silence prompted by whatever the hell that was.
"Nice to see you too, Luke. Is it just me or have you gotten even more muscley since the last time I saw you?"
Luke sighs. "What's Deadpool doing here?"
"Spider-Baby texted me, just like the rest of you," Deadpool says. "At least someone here recognizes my value and doesn't just kick me to the street like a syphilitic hooker."
"Wha—"
"He found out about the group chat," Jessica says bitterly, crossing her arms over her chest.
"Dammit," Luke says.
"Swear jar," Frank says, though he continues to give Matt concerned looks while Matt is very obviously doing everything in his abilities to ignore Frank's presence.
The roof access slams open yet again, and Danny and Colleen both run in, Colleen with a sword slung over her back. She looks a lot more intimidating now than she did when she was doing taxes on the floor.
"Will you people stop slamming my fucking door?" Matt snaps. "It opens just like any other door—no need to put another fucking hole in my wall that I have to get fixed."
"Someone's in a bad mood," Deadpool mutters under his breath, and Peter jumps because he hadn't even realized Deadpool had moved from the couch to just behind him and a bit to the left.
Matt throws a venomous look over their way, and Peter hopes that it's mostly aimed at Deadpool who just makes a kissy face in response.
"Woah, sorry Ma—uh, Daredevil," Danny corrects, once he spots Deadpool. "What's going on, Spider-Man?"
"You're the guy running around Chinatown in a mask beating up human traffickers, right?" Peter asks, figuring he should get some sort of confirmation on that theory before he drags Danny into a mess that he doesn't need to be in.
"Uh, yeah. How'd you know about that?" Danny replies as he makes his way over to squeeze onto the couch beside Luke who's taken Deadpool's spot.
"Not important," Peter says, waving him off. "Well, actually, yes important, but we'll get to that in a minute." He realizes everyone in the room is watching him, and, now that everyone is present, he clears his throat. "I was investigating a missing person case," he starts. "A woman went missing in Queens after she was admitted to Elmhurst Hospital. I was helping her sister look for her since the cops weren't being much help, and she went missing too. Daredevil and I found the cops who covered up her disappearance, and Deadpool helped Daredevil get a name out of them."
"Daniel Adams, executive director of Mount Sinai West," Matt says, finally looking a little bit calmer.
Peter nods. "And I've been following him, like, all day. About half an hour ago he got a phone call. He was talking to the person, and he said that he'd told them to only take people nobody would miss. Then he started talking about mistakes this person and their associates had made. He mentioned my missing people. He mentioned the guy whose fiancée hired you to look for him," Peter says, gesturing to Jessica. "The night with Prija, remember?"
Jessica nods, and she looks increasingly disturbed, as does everyone else.
"He said some 'asshole in a mask' in Chinatown was beating up his long-distance suppliers, I assumed he meant human traffickers considering he was talking about, y'know, kidnapping people." Peter falters for a moment and has to take a deep breath for the next part. He still hasn't gotten over the event, and he doubts that he ever will. "He also said that they left two women in a warehouse they were supposed to clean up and that Luke Cage found them. He said if the guy on the phone or any of the other 'foot soldiers' screwed up again, he'd use them to fill West Sinai's quota. Whatever the hell that means."
Everyone is quiet for a minute before Frank breaks the silence.
"This one guy—he's connected to all that shit?" he asks, gesturing broadly.
Peter nods. "And the guy on the other end of the call made it sound like they'd taken a lot more people than we know."
"Well, he seems pretty high up. I'd say he probably knows where these people are bein' held. If they're still alive. And I think I know how to get him to tell us."
"No!" Peter protests immediately, his panicked tone drawing all eyes back on him once again. "No," he repeats, sounding less scared and lot more substantial. "Nobody's going to torture any more answers out of anyone."
Frank frowns at him, but Matt gives him a look similar to the one he'd given Deadpool last night, and he backs off after a minute of the staring contest.
Frank sighs and throws his hands in the air. "Fine, kid. Then what are we gonna do?"
"He has a safe in his apartment," Deadpool says, finally contributing something useful to the conversation. "Real fancy, real expensive, real hard to break into. He didn't have any files about any of this human trafficking shit in his office or on his computer. If he's talking about quotas, then there's probably some sort of ledger. I bet it's in that safe, and I bet it's what we need."
Frank narrows his eyes a little at Deadpool. "How sure are you?"
"How straight is a dick?" Deadpool says, and nobody has a response for that.
Jessica's the one to fill the silence this time. "Fine, he has the safe in his apartment. We break in, we get the safe, we get the ledger, we get out. Sounds simple enough."
There are nods and murmurs of agreement all around, and Peter shakes his head.
"Yeah, no. That's not happening," he says.
"Why not?" three people ask.
"I found his apartment earlier," Peter explains. "It's super high up—seriously. Even I had trouble getting to it from the outside. And when I tried to get in through the door…" Peter just shakes his head again. "Nope. Three cameras in the hallway, reinforced metal door with another camera on it, three locks, and a keypad. The only way anyone's getting in there is if Daniel Adams lets them in."
"Well, you said you managed to get to it from the outside," Colleen points out. "Couldn't you just break the glass and get in that way?"
Peter shakes his head again. "Breaking glass that high up is actually really freakin' hard. And Daredevil needs to be the one in the apartment. Sure, I could break in through the window if I don't plummet to my death and then let him in through the front door, but again, cameras and building security. It'd tip him off for sure, and they might move the people and we'll just find an empty warehouse again."
"Why does Daredevil need to be the one in the apartment?" Danny asks.
"Uncrackable safe," Deadpool answers. "Only Red here has the ear to do it."
Frank sighs. "Well, I guess we'll just have to get him to let you in, Red. You play up your thing, act like you need help."
"He's a total douchebag. I doubt he'd help him, even with his thing." Peter's assuming that the 'thing' is Matt's blindness.
"Couldn't hurt to try it though," Jessica points out. "You said you were following him, right Spidey?"
Peter nods.
"Where'd you leave him?" she continues.
"Uh… A gay bar. Near 41st," Peter says.
"Do you think he's still there?" Danny asks.
"Lemme check," Deadpool replies, pulling out his phone to check Snap Maps, probably. There's silence for another moment before it's interrupted by Deadpool's gleeful clapping. "Yep, still there."
Deadpool, Frank, Jessica, and Colleen are all staring at Matt with a look Peter doesn't quite recognize, but gets the gist of anyway.
"No," Matt says immediately.
"Please, Red?" Deadpool begs, and Peter gets the distinct impression that he's batting his eyelashes beneath the mask.
"I'm not letting him take me home."
"Oh come on, it'll be a piece of cake! We all know you've got a nice face under the mask," Deadpool says as he meanders over to the current object of his torment.
"Wade," Matt hisses in a warning tone.
"And an even nicer body under the suit," Deadpool continues, despite Matt's warning.
If looks could kill, the one on Matt's face would put even Deadpool six feet under.
It's so quiet Peter thinks he can hear his own heartbeat.
"I knew it," Jessica breathes out, holding her hand out to Luke. "Pay up."
Luke looks miffed as he pulls a twenty out of his pocket and slaps it onto Jessica's palm.
"Really?" Frank says, looking all too amused. "You fucked Deadpool? Classy, Red." Peter can almost taste the sarcasm oozing out of the words.
"Oh, fuck you, Frank," Matt snaps, turning his killer glare from Deadpool to Castle in an instant.
"Yeah, fuck you!" Deadpool agrees. "If I remember correctly, darling Matthew here just went on and on about how 'oh, yeah, you're so much better than Frank. Oh God, Wade, harder—my Catholic Guilt Complex is about to kick in, oh God!'" Deadpool says in what Peter can only infer is his impression of how Matt sounds during sex.
"I am going to kill you," Matt hisses at Wade, jabbing his finger into the man's chest hard. "I'm going to kill you, and I'm not going to feel bad about it, because I know you'll come right the fuck back so I can kill you again."
Peter's not the only one who notices a distinct lack of denial on Matt's part in that sentence.
"Did you really—" Danny starts to ask before Frank and Matt both turn to look at him.
"It was one time!" they snap in unison.
Deadpool looks supremely amused by the impromptu confession he's caused.
Luke holds his hand back out to Jessica, who has an even more sour look on her face as she slides the twenty back to its original owner.
"Damn, Murdock, was I really your third choice?" Jessica says. "I'm wounded," she adds on, not sounding wounded at all.
"Wow, this is incredible," Deadpool says. "I'm starting a club. The 'I banged Daredevil Club'. Is there anyone else I need to send an invitation to? Maybe Captain America?" he teases.
"I haven't slept with Captain America," Matt snaps.
"Hawkeye?"
"No."
"The Hulk?"
"No."
"Falcon?"
"No."
"How about Iron Man?" Jessica calls from where she's sitting on the couch.
Matt's mouth flattens out into a harsh line. For a lawyer/vigilante/human lie detector, he really is terrible at telling lies.
"No," Peter gasps.
Matt doesn't say anything.
"But you're always fighting with h—" Peter stops mid-sentence. Matt's always fighting with Deadpool. And Mr. Castle. Oh God, is that his type?
"He has a type, kiddo," Deadpool confirms with a solemn nod, before turning back to Matt. "How about B—"
"If I agree to do this, will everyone in here shut the hell up about my sex life?" Matt snaps. "Can we agree to that?!"
"Deal," Deadpool says, and Peter can tell from his voice that he's not going to drop it.