"—sort of empty skull do you ferry—"

"I said to visit soon!"

"The sun has barely risen in the subsequent day you absolutely idiotic—"

Peter sat up before he even thought of opening his eyes and by the time he rubbed away the crust and pried them open, it was about an hour before he had to leave to make it in time for the second bell. Mom's and Thor's bickering filtered through the pitch darkness of the room; the thick blanket he had kept over the window would've been good enough to block the sunlight from his senses, but when Mom saw she'd cast spells on the frame, the pane, the glass, and still she'd bought a pair of black-out curtains in dark blue.

He slid out from under his ridiculously soft sheets and fumbled for his AcaDec sweatshirt, then jeans, and right when he was pulling on one sock that stopped at his ankle and another that reached the middle of his calf, the door swung wide open.

Peter squinted and shielded his eyes. "Oh, dude."

"Good morning, Nephew!" Thor greeted, climbing sunshine breaking through behind him. He was in jeans again, a brown leather jacket over his shoulders and that same red scarf from last night slung around his neck and hanging just past his waist. And, was he, he kept the beanie— "It is to my knowledge that the children here wake quite early for their lessons, much earlier than on Asgard for reasons I cannot fathom, so I had taken care for Heimdall to inform me when it was appropriate for my next visit—"

"And it was not," Mom's voice echoed faintly from down the hall.

"—and it was because I said soon and this morning certainly qualifies as such." He smiled brightly. "Would you like to eat?"

"Sure! An-And good morning to you too, Mr. Thor!" Peter tacked on quickly, hurrying to his feet to scoop his notebooks and binders into his arms and ducked through his open bedroom door. Dirty blond brows pinched together.

"None of that, lad. Call me Uncle!"

"Oh, um..."

Ben was the only uncle he ever had. Richard was his only brother and Mary was an only child and even if May had always been a Parker in his eyes, she had three sisters; Annie who'd died before he could meet her, Jan who lived down in Boston and sent a postcard every Christmas and a birthday card with twenty dollars every August, April who was just gone. And even then, Ben became less of an uncle and more of a...

He bit the inside of his cheek.

The wafting scent of celery, onion, and thyme accompanied a faint bubbling and the rhythmic stirring of a stirring pot. Loki, clad in a dark gray robe and looking way too elegant at way too early in the morning, looked over his shoulder from his spot in front of the stove and raised a short glare that zipped right over Peter's head.

Thor waved a hand and smiled down. "In your own time, then," he reassured as he tousled brown hair. "In the meantime, I suppose 'Mr. Thor' will suffice. Or simply Thor, if you feel daring."

Peter managed a grateful look back.

"Good morning," Loki greeted softly as he patted his son into the seat at the head of the table, then cast a mildly exasperated glance at Thor when the latter plopped down in the chair to his left. "How was your rest?"

Peter set his things down on the floor under his chair. A couple pens rolled. "Good! I think I caught up on a lot."

Breakfast was served with the huge pot of celery-onion-thyme soup moved to a mat at the center of the dining table. Plates of dried haddock and bread and butter filled the surrounding space like they were about to feed ten people instead of three, but he guessed between his enhanced metabolism and the other two's literal other-worldly stomachs, this was normal.

"It was curious to watch you prepare this meal," Thor said as he ladled soup into Peter's bowl until it nearly spilled from the lip. "Your mother and I were never allowed in the palace kitchens; too 'destructive' and 'distracting' and 'disruptive' and a whole host of other disparages that begin with the letter 'd.'"

"He was a particularly thorough menace," Loki grumbled and tore into a piece of fish.

"Charmed the cooks for sweetmeats." Thor winked. "Alas, the things I do for divine honeyed rolls."

Peter smiled around a spoonful of soup.

And he thought Loki almost smiled too before he caught himself and schooled his face into something close to haughtiness. As he poised one leg over the other and crossed his arms over his chest, he was every bit as princely and cold the stories make him out to be. "As you have made it abundantly clear that you will be a consistent presence in Peter's life and this residence, there will. Be. Rules. You cannot gallivant as you please under these circumstances."

That friendly cheer didn't quite leave Thor's face, but a shadow muddled solemnly in the crinkles around his eyes as he nodded. Fifteen hundred or so years, Peter remembered him saying last night. He couldn't even begin to comprehend what it meant to be alive that long.

"First and foremost, I am dead. Do not utter my names neither here nor there and do not approach me so obviously in my other forms. You would also do well to mind your appearances in places we frequent, which is not an invitation to surface at Peter's school, home, work. He cannot, under any circumstances, be likened to you as an associate."

"Aye, I am not so thick."

Loki scoffed and plowed on. "And that includes when he appears as Spider-Man."

"Brother," Thor pouted. "You would not allow me to battle alongside such a fine warrior?"

Peter blushed and stuffed barley and parsnips into his mouth until he chipmunked.

"Brother," Loki mocked. "I would not allow you to battle within fifty mil of him, but your persistence is grating and I know well enough your obstinacy is best quelled from the start. You may see him all you like, but you will never be seen with him. Is that understood?"

A relenting sigh. "Yes, you have my word. Secrecy is a small fare in exchange for safety."

The smile he flashed at Peter was different from what he saw on short interview clips on YouTube. Thor was a living myth, unearthly, born and raised and hailed a god. He was all wide grins and unshakable postures, answering questions like a medieval king and just enough out of place in the modern world with his flowing cape and crackling hammer that it was almost as if he was the world's collective hallucination.

But this smile was a lot quieter. Gentler. And when Thor reached out to gently clap his upper arm, some of his soup jostled off his spoon and Peter didn't mind it all that much.

"And what of my visits to you?" Thor asked as he turned his eyes across the table.

"... Pardon?"

"If it is my unannounced visits that vex you, then I will inform you every time I am to come. Often enough, I hope, as Mother and Father will think it for my duties in the protection of Earth than anything other. And I... meant what I said last night, with everything I have." He opened his mouth, but thought better of whatever it was and shut his mouth with a short exhale. "I was never there for you before, not in the way you needed. Now, it is my only wish to amend that for you and your son."

Peter pretended to be more interested in the identically cut celery in his bowl when he caught an expression he'd never seen on Loki's face before. Grief, maybe. And anger, and bitterness, and something so lonely—

He wiped a palm on his jeans and stuffed another spoon of soup in his mouth. Wow, this soup was good. May would probably like it, so he wondered if Loki would teach him the recipe after he and Thor dealt with what sounded like hundreds of years that led them, well, here. Here, where Thor still called Loki brother and came back even though they fought in the city for billions to see. Here, where Loki was a guilty criminal, a fugitive, someone supposed to be dead and mourned.

Here, where he didn't know who Loki hated more: his brother or himself.

Peter's phone buzzed in his pocket.

Guy in the Chair: dude how cld u leave me HAGNING last nite [6:47 am]

Guy in the Chair: thor was like totally back in NY for 2 sec beofre poof [6:47 am]

Guy in the Chair: rainbowed bac up to space [6:48 am]

Guy in the Chair: did u see him? [6:48 am]

He bit his cheek.

Me: aw what i MISSED THO R? [6:49 am]

And shoved the phone back in his pocket like it burned him.

"I've got to start heading to school or else Mr. Morita might call May for another parent-teacher conference and she'll cut even more of my Spider-Man hours." Peter drained the last bits of his soup straight from the bowl as he slid out of his chair to put all his things in the sink. When he turned back towards the table, Thor had his cheer and Loki his composure. "Plus I need to take a detour to get another backpack."

"Are the stores open this early?" Loki questioned as he strode towards the counter to pick up the soup thermos and began to fill it from the pot. "By the lightning scars on the one you returned with, I assume someone appeared on a rooftop with meager care?"

"Am I to be the God of Thunder without a great prelude?"

Loki rolled his eyes and handed Peter the thermos. "Be sure to finish your lunch and bring your new pack to me once you have made your purchase; there are some charms I can cast to improve durability."

"Wait!" Thor's exclamation echoed near the front door before the god himself—when did he even get up to move? He could talk as loud as his title, no way he could just sneak away like that— "I did not intend to ruin his belongings and made to correct it before my arrival!"

And he walked back in with—

Peter pressed his lips together.

In Thor's hands was a black backpack with white spray-painted art of what was a hand holding Mjolnir in all its glory as stretches of lighting flashed all over the front.

"They have products for each of the Avengers!" He grinned. "A whole section of dedication to my comrades and I, with ample back-packs to choose from. Of course, who else to 'rep' but your 'cool' Uncle?"

Loki held a defeated hand over his face, and the burst of laughter that pushed out of Peter spilled all the rest of pens and pencils on the floor.

::

"Rubber bullets?" Wade's mask scrunched up in mortal offense at the customized box that Weasel slid over the counter toward Peter. "Not only are you one, using something with limited range, reduced accuracy, and bouncy projectiles, you're two, smuggling it in a fucking Lego box?" He jabbed a finger. "I swear if you didn't even build General Grievous' Combat Speeder—"

It was Peter's turn for mortal offense.

"This set was like thirty dollars and you think I didn't build it before bringing the box? Please, I'm a cultured member of society."

Neena bent her straw and sipped her soda. "And everyone knows he gets frowny about using guns." She jerked her head at the stacked chairs around freshly wiped down tables. Sunlight still barely filtered through the sorry excuses they had for windows, and it'd be well past dark before the patrons started rolling in. "It'd be weirder to see him with anything else."

"Rude as fuck you keep hogging the braincell from the testicle with teeth," Weasel said.

"It wouldn't survive in there."

Wade then swiveled his gaze to the teen, and narrowed his lenses. "You, I'm suspiciously suspicious about. Don't think I haven't seen that you like to keep your mags in your pocket instead of in your gun, so even this order? Suspicious."

"What if this is character growth?"

"You can't start to use guns and gain fourth wall awareness, Petey. That's OOC, OP, and really, that'd be copying my schtick."

"What? What does that even...?" Peter shook his head. "Wait, let me get this out. Yeah, I didn't want to get into this stuff at first and yeah, I'm trying for rubber bullets when everyone else I'm going to meet here is going to use metal, but it's not that I'm trying to be like you guys when you get shoot-y and stabby. Like, that's probably not even on the list of things I want to do with my life. No offense!"

"None taken," came the resounding chorus.

"And that better not change," Neena warned.

"So I figured that if I could compromise with less lethal ammo, I could learn to shoot to incapacitate and you guys don't have to worry about me."

Weasel crossed his arms. "Okay, and which asshole would you pick to teach you to do the opposite of their job?"

"Well, uh, I was thinking, maybe..." He peeked to the side. "That Wade could let me tag along on his mission tonight?"

A startled laugh jumped out from behind the bar. But when there was no follow-up joke to that, Weasel blinked and pushed up his glasses. "Oh, you're not being funny. Thought you were finally adopting some local humor, but no, this is just some shit you end up saying. Yeah. No. Absolutely not, what are we talking about next?"

"But I already did the research!" Peter protested.

"You're giving me fucking stress ulcers."

"The client wants info destroyed and there's a thirty minute time period right after nine tonight where the info the client wants gone is at the Staten Island Ferry terminal, Manhattan side, and cross-referencing the system inputs and hours of security camera data showed a transport discrepancy and false documentation. Here's what I found, triple-checked and everything." He set a flash drive on the bar. "And I won't interfere, I swear!"

"You're actually insane." One of Weasel's clammy hands tangled in his hair as he scratched the back of his head. "You know, I didn't think I was going to have a conversation about judgment with you, but this is what I get for hiring straight out of the womb."

"But—"

Wade plucked the drive and rolled it between his gloved fingers. His thumb pressed against the slidey-switch, up click, down click, up click, as he spied the clump of lint wedged in the metal like it lived in the bottom of the kid's backpack for a few months because it came with a college fair goodie bag and he'd kept it around just in case.

Smart kid, a voice that wasn't his thought.

'Course he was. You never know when you need a flash drive, after all.

"This'll be good for him," Neena said, setting her drink on the coaster. "If he wants to learn, let him learn. It's not like he can't keep explaining away weird acrobatics as gymnastics training or super strength with adrenaline rushes."

"—u've forgotten, wait. Wait." Weasel's head jerked towards her. "What the fuck did you imply to me?"

Down click. "I'm confused, because this sounds like you know the secret-that-must-not-be-named and that can't be true when Peter is our golden boy who would never put his life or identity in danger."

"Pete's Spider-Man."

"Don't say it out loud, Jesus CHRIST—"

Wade clapped his free hand on the teen's shoulder. "You're so shit at secret keeping."

"Ugh, tell me about it."

"But he's right." Neena leaned on her elbow on Peter's other side and dropped her chin into her palm. "He's a great shot at June's, and you know something's gonna happen sooner or later and it's better he learns when he wants to instead of when he has to. Upside is he gets real experience, downside is you get Wade as a chaperone, but you take what you can get." She lifted her drink. "Plus, he's enhanced. Gives him a hell of a good chance."

Which, true. Wade wasn't going to lie and say he was a boy scout who's got all one hundred thirty seven merit badges on his sash, but the few he had he was trying to wash the blood stains off, he promised! But there was no way in hell he'd let Peter get within two feet of Death even if she said 'pretty please.' But those unloaded guns hadn't been the only thing he noticed. Lately, it was looking like mercs started moving their grubby feet out the way wherever Ferret carried food or drinks and giving him actual answers when he asked how their day was going.

Once you earned Sister Margaret's anointed respect you had to be so fucking careful about what you did with it. But high schoolers shouldn't even need to think about shit like that except here, apparently, and that made him one of them.

"Time to make your case," he said. "Question one: what weapons would you bring, if you could bring them?"

"My dagger and the 14-shot M1911 you gave me."

Wade nodded. "That completes the questionnaire and you've passed with flying colors. Congratulations! You're hired!"

Weasel planted both hands on the bar and scrunched his face like it was a Taco Bell basher in that gut. "You did not just say that after he listed one gun and one knife."

"Do you need hearing aids? Al's got like, 30% off coupons for the ones that go in the canal—"

"There's a reason why you, Deadpool, had this mission on your roster, and you know it's not because you needed a new stack to roll so you can snort your fucking lines," Weasel snapped in some rare fit of sanity. You had to be at least one coffee bean short of a cappuccino to get a merc dispatch running as efficiently as the Hellhouse, and he thought Weasel lost more than a handful years ago. "The info you're after is guarded by up to thirty built-ass yippee ki-yay motherfuckers where stealth isn't optional and injury is 95% probably and you want to bring Ferret?" He threw his hands up. "Get your own fucking dish boy!"

"Mr. Weasel?"

Three pairs of eyes (four, technically) pivot to him.

Peter sat up a little straighter. "I know you never planned on sending me out on stuff like this, but it's like Neena said. If I can do this, it'll be a lot easier on you."

A weary sigh blew past chapped lips. "Kid, it's not your job to—"

"It's not, I know, but," brown eyes flickered down for a moment, "I've got access to records, inventory, and the Gold Card machine. I'm fifteen, and..." When his eyes rose again, the adults winced. God, he didn't know the kid could make that face, but if he really fought through that Coney Island wreckage on the news— "And I need to do better. What if someone like Kairo Green starts something again? What if I have to fight and I can't use Spider-Man to do it? I want to learn, and I don't have to like it to understand that all of this is bigger than me." He toyed with the watch on his wrist. Old. Battered. "I still don't want to kill people, I won't, but I'm going to stand behind this gun before I'm shot dead in front of one."

(His side pulsed with a phantom ache. The pistol against his hip was cold.)

"Please, Mr. Weasel," he said. "Let me do this."

Weasel's face scrunched up like he went to town on a chalupa folded into a Mexican pizza slapped onto a crunchwrap supreme at four in the morning. Both his palms covered the bottom half of his face and his glasses rode up with the tips of his fingers smudging the lenses.

The most disgruntled-underpaid-teacher groan puffed out his mouth as his elbows hit the bar. "If you die out there, I'm docking it off your next paycheck."

Wade's lips twisted into a bleak smile under his mask.

::

Peter spied his reflection in his blade before he slid it into the sheath on his left calf. The utility belt he borrowed from Wade had a DP logo on the buckle, fashionably debatable, but it carried the reload for the gun strapped to his right thigh and his webshooters in case things went south. The plain black hoodie he threw on covered the red spider on his chest which was kind of a bummer, and he already had to lose the full mask from the risk of being even remotely associated with Spider-Man—and Spider-Man could not be seen with one of the most infamous mercs in the business. Not if he didn't want the Bugle to start a witch hunt on his head for being even more of a 'menace' to society.

Wade's solution to that was a tactical half mask that made him look like Plo Koon's cousin and a pair of blue tinted goggles looped around his hood to keep it over his head. Part of his forehead was exposed and some of his hair poked out the front, but Wade swore that if it worked for the Winter Soldier, it'd work just fine for him too.

But upside! It was the second time he was wearing out the new suit Wade and Mr. Weasel gave him! He felt awful leaving it for dust in his backpack when he left it in the breakroom during work. He kept telling himself he'd get to use it one day when he was able to swing around the city in the sunlight when he didn't have to worry about Mr. Stark and the general population of New York City raining down on his head because of it, and they never seemed to mind there was a lack of mostly-blue suit on the corner TV, but that wasn't fair, especially not when they took the time to actually get this for him. And when he slipped it on, the first thing he noticed was the bulk. Heavier where the guards sat. More tightly woven, but less dense than the Deadpool suit to account for his flexibility.

(It wasn't the StarkSuit.)

Karen was still attached to the other suit and Ned had been helping him poke around the systems every now and then to see if they could transplant her to other devices without letting Mr. Stark know. And without her with him, he'd have to do any tech problems they ran into himself, but he could probably destroy the data on his own.

How hard could it be, right? He can do this. He had to do this.

—besides getting cats down from—

Wade pulled the binoculars down, but didn't tear his gaze away from the Whitehall Ferry Terminal. "What we're looking for's in the actual terminal, no boat boarding necessary. We'll make it to the first dock below the loading ramps with maintenance access. Real easy targets to spot, just like Wease said: crazy, sweaty, John McClane-adjacents hired straight out of Minions R Us."

"So what's the plan?"

"Considering the best course of action is bringing the butcher to the meathead? I was gonna bust in while going (insert vocalization of the Mission Impossible Theme Song here)."

"You could've done the vocalization in the same time it took you to say all that."

"It wouldn't have been the same."

Peter snorted and pressed a button on the side of his mask. "Maybe you should get one of those belt grapples like Batman." His voice rang a bit deeper now, nothing like when he tried it back when he webbed that guy to his car but not sounding unlike the younger mercs that stopped by the bar. They weren't usually chatty and never stayed long for drinks, but they always tipped up to 40%. "Wait, we actually might be able to do that. I'm pretty sure I can web you down a building."

"Fuck no, you're swinging me into a building so I can kick through a window and pose like a ninja turtle."

"Michelangelo?"

"I've always wanted to channel Raph."

One of the ferries jolted and began to ease its way out of the port, prompting Wade to fold his binoculars and shove them in his belt as he slung himself off the edge of their perch. Peter startled for a brief second and followed—he resolved to keep his sticky fingers to himself. An uncanny mask was one way to get him into hot water, but literal wall-crawling?

He shook his head. This wasn't Spider-Man's mess; it was Ferret's, or whoever he was now in whatever trouble he was in. Who used that code to find a job listing at Sister Margaret's? Who was the one who stayed, willingly fighting for his friends when he knew there was always a chance they'd end up the same way the Gold Card names did?

(It took him a couple months to learn that just because someone wasn't good didn't mean they were bad. Wade, Neena, Mr. Weasel, Granny Sal.)

((Mom.))

Near the port, Wade started to load a gun. Peter hesitated, then started to load his too.

"Hey, Pool?" He whispered. The man tipped his head to show he was listening. "I'm really not going to kill anyone, but... would it be asking too much if I asked you to not kill anyone either?"

One of the first things Weasel taught him when he got the job at Sister Margaret's was where the ladder was and that there was a box of chalk under the counter.

"That thing gets changed at the start of every week or when there's an actual death, so get used to it," Weasel tells him as he points at the blackboard hanging over their heads. "Don't spell any of the names wrong either or you'll get a bitch fit on your hands."

"What's a Dead Pool?"

"We bet on who dies. Not to be confused with Deadpool, one word, 'p' not capitalized. He can't die, and he won't shut the fuck up about the chalk dust making him sneeze."

They've been friends for months the beginning, before making it through the trial period and before he started getting trusted with budget and inventory, he'd been warned about Deadpool. Top mercenary, enhanced, more than a few sets of screws loose that would get you a bullet in your head faster than you could open your mouth. So initially he planned to keep his head down and dish out the bar snacks in case Deadpool walked in on a particularly bad day, but he should've known better than to listen to rumors. Flash spread enough of them for him to stop listening.

"You're really serious about that, huh?" Wade looked at him. "It's not even hard."

The goggles were too dark to see the stare Peter gave, but he crossed his arms and Wade thunked the back of his head against the brick wall behind them. "I can't believe your life reached this exact point and there isn't an intervention waiting on the other side."

"You let me come with you."

"Fuck," Wade whispered, with feeling. He peered around the corner and tapped the comm in his ear. It echoed in Peter's. "Thirty guards, exactly, scattered. You're faster, so you start with the left half at the edge; work your way towards the middle where we'll meet. Pretty open space, mostly railings and metal walkways, easy peasy lemon skeezy." He turned back to him and raised a solemn three-finger salute. "And I guess I can aim in the general direction of typically uncontested 'non-lethal' areas of the human body."

A tiny smile lit up behind Peter's half-mask. "Thanks, Pool."

"If we weren't taco buddies..." He muttered, then bent his legs. "Count your bullets, remember the rubber ones can bounce, and shout if you get a hole in your ribs and you can't stop the bleeding. So, without further ado, let's start your interactive Mercenaries on Missions 101, CD included. Lesson One: If you get in a real pickle, break the jar."

"Uh, I don't want to break anything. Last time I was here, a ferry literally broke in half."

"Ohhhhh shit, that was you, huh."

"Dude."

"Fine, just pop the lid with a butter knife."

So when Peter dashed into the open, he aimed for the legs. It was mostly the thighs that weren't protected and he shot between holster straps, one two three. His spidey-sense was better at dodging bullets these days and he managed to roll behind a crate unscathed after kicking away the downed guards' main guns.

"No killing!" Bang. "Can you fucking believe—" Bang. "—that? All you dick tips—" Bang, bang, bang. "—should be so fucking blessed—" Bang. "—that my fist isn't—" Bang. "—up your FUCKING—"

'Downed' didn't mean 'incapacitated' and it meant working twice as hard as the other mercs by risking getting hit from the ground or mis-counting which people could still be a threat, but that didn't change anything. He was Peter, Ferret, Spider-Man. And now, all his knockout blows still hit jaws or temples or the sides of necks with a force just shy of breaking bone. Getting shot at point blank with rubber bullets was still fatal.

"Get the little bastard in the blue tights!"

Four—to the other side of the terminal—ten—twelve. Wade yanked out one of his katanas and started swinging in a feat of self-restraint Peter honestly didn't think he'd see today. When he started his first incursion forward, he tucked away his gun and drew the dagger to butt a few with the hilt. Thirteen, fourteen. He blocked a bowie knife with his blade and swore the snakes carved into the wood began to writhe before winding a kick across the wielder's face—fifteen.

"Shit, when did Deadpool get a sidekick?!"

Okay, rude. He sheathed back his dagger and flipped down a heel kick into that dude's gun and shattered the barrel, then punched them straight through their army green balaclava.

Sixteen—over to Wade—eighteen, twenty-three, twenty-four. Six more.

He ducked out the trajectory of a swing—

"Lesson Two!" Wade shouted. "There's no 'do not cross' tape on the nards!"

—and kicked that guy straight in the nards before uppercutting straight off the ground. Twenty-five.

"YEAH! THAT'S MY BOY!"

His shoulders hunch a bit towards his ears. Joking or not, he hated how genuine that sounded. It made his face warm and his skin crawl with embarrassment, but at least for once he really did feel like he was doing something right.

The left half is mostly clear with the remaining guards swarming Wade. He plucked his gun back out, shot a straggler in the forearm when they reached for another weapon, then aimed around Deadpool.

Bang, bang, bang, bang. Steel glinted. Twenty-six, twenty-seven, twenty-eight.

He darted closer and swept a pair of legs and drove an elbow into their face when they fell. Twenty-nine.

A body collapsed beside him, blood leaking out of his torso and the faintest up-down of his chest carrying steady. Peter wrenched his gaze away and stood. Thirty.

"That wasn't too bad, right?" He panted. He stepped around the bodies and recounted. "Now we just need to find where that info's—"

Thirty-one. There, another body wedged beneath metal grate stairs and slumped into their own lap. He must've counted wrong, then? But that didn't make sense, Wade had said thirty guards exactly and that wasn't a type of mistake he'd make. Maybe if he started on Wade's side and then make his way to his for a better count, so that body under the stairs, one, laid out on the floor next to them, two, three, four, five, six, seven on the railing, eight nine ten in a pile, eleven on their stomach, twelve—

Oh.

Twelve wasn't dressed like the guards. Twelve had on a sweater and a blazer and a bulletproof vest that was too big on him because he wasn't packed with muscle and wasn't armed.

Oh no.

Wade stepped up next to him, a pistol on his shoulder and a hand propped on his hip. "Yeah, it didn't sound like you knew."

"It—It sounded like it was a hard drive, or, or..."

"The only way you can make sure you have one copy of something is to keep alllll your little thoughts right up here." Wade tapped the barrel to the side of his own head, and Peter's gaze wavered down to where a black-gloved finger sat dangerously close to the trigger. "Makes you invaluable, 'cept you've gotta live with a target the size of Colossus on your ass. The X-Man, not the statue of Rhodes."

He pushed the body onto their back. A trickle of blood ran down the corner of their mouth.

Peter swallowed. "Are you...?"

Wade dropped a hand on his shoulder. "Lesson Three: Always see it through."

It. What the heck was it supposed to be? The mission? The objective? The happy little surprise that info could mean living person and he'd begged Mr. Weasel to be on a mission where the endgame was for someone to die? His hands clenched. But would standing here be different than him handing out those Gold Cards like one-way tickets to hell? He knew people died all the time at that bar, and he served their killers chicken wings and nachos and pints for a chatty shift.

The hand on his shoulder shook him lightly. "Have you ever seen a dead body before?"

A gunshot for a wallet. Blood on his hands. Ben? Ben, no, stay awake, please, please, please—

(This is going to break May's heart.)

"Once," he said. Wade kept silent for a moment, just the two of them in a sea of still-breathing bodies. A refreshing chill swept through the open air of the terminal port and only just held himself back from ripping off his mask and inhaling freezing air to clear his head.

His shoulder was patted a couple times.

"You did good," Wade told him sincerely. Peter's heart swelled in his chest, and it ached. Then he was spun around to face the other way, Wade's hand resting easy on his shoulder and got a face full of one of the sleeves of Deadpool's suit. "But you don't have to see this."

Peter's nose filled with the scent of gunpowder and copper.

You don't have to kill him, he wanted to try.

There has to be another way, he wanted to plead.

Does this make us the bad guys? He wanted to ask.

"Okay," he ended up saying instead.

The last shot of the night rang out behind him, and he was too numb to flinch.

::

"Hello?"

"At least your number's still in service."

Peter froze, his insides swooping like he'd fallen off a building and forgot to check his web fluid, and it took a lucky bout of restraint to keep himself from shattering his phone.

"... Happy?"

"You haven't called in over two weeks and Spider-Man is still active most nights. I, uh." A cleared throat. "Wanted to make sure the line was still in use."

He glanced around the alley. Nothing but wet streets and a couple silhouettes hanging out down the way. "Oh. Um. I didn't mean to not call, I've just been kind of busy? Not that calling you is low on the list or anything! There's just been a lot of homework to make up for winter break since I guess a teacher's second favorite hobby is grading. Ned and I haven't hung out as much between that and spider-ing, but we still do homework together and go out at least once a week to try and find the best hotdog in Queens. I've also been learning to cook now, graduating from those frozen meals May used to stock up on and like, I know she tried to cook but we still ended up between those and take out and wow, fresh broccoli? That's on a whole other level—"

"Sounds like you're doing fine," Happy cut in, and Peter's jaw clacked shut. "And the line's good, so."

"... Ri-Right." Okay, Parker. Just hang up. Don't ask, you're going to make yourself sound like—but what if it was different this time? His chances were never good and he didn't know why he was still holding onto his hope when this whole thing had been 'leave a message after the tone' and talking to no one over and over again. But maybe, this one time, and he couldn't help but ask, "So, um, anything—anything from Mr. Stark?"

A crackle of silence.

"I'm sorry, kid," Happy rumbled quietly. "Stay safe out there."

Click.

It wasn't much of a snow day today. There have been a couple flakes here and there and like always, he could barely feel it through the red plaid jacket Wade threw on him before he stepped out because your brand isn't Brawny, so there's no reason for you to wear a hoodie with paper towel sleeves.

Cigarette smoke lit the air. Glasses clinked in the bar behind him. Neena might get into another fight.

His boots were still stained red at the heel.

Peter lowered his phone and watched the recent calls screen gleam up at him. Right by Happy's name was a profile pic of a little red box with a yellow smile on one side.

A tap and contact opened. Another tap and settings popped up. One more tap on the last option and a confirmation screen gleamed.

Are you sure you want to block and delete this contact?

He breathed in, and thought about how nice it felt to have someone in his corner during a mission. Ned was great, don't get him wrong, but he'd never put his best friend through... murkier stuff like this. And even though it was Wade's mission and Peter promised not to get involved, he'd been allowed to fight half the security detail, allowed to take more than one hit and not get dragged out of battle to wait on the sidelines, allowed to make what he thought were good calls without the patented adult disapproval.

Tonight ended with a metal bullet, and Wade told him not to watch.

"I'm sorry too, Happy, but I don't know what to do anymore," he whispered. His voice didn't tremble—it didn't. "At least you'll get some peace now, huh?"

He breathed out, and the air in his lungs was too cold to see.

Tap.