Keigo Takami is used to having his head in the clouds. Quite literally. There's nothing more freeing than the feeling of fresh air coming in cool waves as he soars through the sky; it's like swimming through water but having a filtration to his lungs rather than being submerged and suffocated. Now, his vision is fogged. And yet, it's intoxicating the air that he breathes in. It's hot and claustrophobic, this feeling of being trapped in a closed room down on the ground. What's seeping from his skin is a concoction of sweat and steam condensation, but it's still heavy enough to weigh him down.

Keigo runs a hand through his ashen blonde hair, the slickness of it sliding his fingers through those locks the way his hair gel gives a similar effect. In front of him is a fogged up mirror. He can't see his reflection to primp or prim. It's not like he quite wants to anyways. He's not sure who he'd see anymore, unable to recognize the face that's as pale as the steam wafting around him. His feathers are still red even after a rough washing. Even after scrubbing the plumage down. He still sees the color tone of his wings as the boy's blood that he shed.

As The Vulture, they were coated in a green metallic shielding. And yet, the thought of covering up his shamefulness in an attempt to hide it is just as haunting. As Adam & Eve had sewn fig leaves together to conceal their sin of eating a fig, it makes no sense to him to do the same now. And yet, all he wants to do is put on a mask to hide his face. He places his hand against the mirror opposing him, the pressed print mark exposing his reflection.

Keigo's hand folds into a fist. All of his frustration with himself is expressed in that fist. He takes a swing at the image of the murderer. The mirror breaks, of course. Glass shards slice into his knuckles when his fist sinks inward. Scarred like his heart, Keigo's hands are sullied with blood on them again. He stares at the cracks crossing over his face, splitting at the seams of his head with his fractured psyche.

He's killed before. He tells himself that this time was no different. But then he thinks about his predecessor and what she had told him before she went crazy. Lady Nagant had feared she'd cross the line if a line to murder were to be drawn somewhere. When she saw her hand coated in blood as she extended it towards a child, even if it was just a hallucination brought on by her guilt, she knew that was where the line was to be marked. Keigo crossed that line. He went too far.

He sucks on the blood seeping from the scratched skin of his knuckles. His teeth gnaw on the swollen scarring. Heroes are meant to be idolized by children. How he can call himself one when being unable to live up to those expectations is beyond him. The HPSC can organize things methodically all that they want, there's some things that can't be changed or swept under the rug.

Keigo wraps a towel around his waist before leaving the bathroom. All the while, he keeps his hand hidden in his mouth. It's the scraps of his sanity that he's bound to swallow. The man begins pacing around his room as he mulls over everything in his mind. Like a whirlwind of thought, he finds himself walking in circles. His other hand comes up to his head when he scratches at his skull with his nails as though they are talons.

Hair follicles fall to the carpet floor beneath him, where both blood and water drip into a pool of soggy steppage. Keigo scrapes at his skull, eager to get the thoughts that he's having out of his head. He pulls at his hair, plucking it out. Fed up with the barrier between him and his mind, he forces his way back into the bathroom. His towel unravels from his waist and falls to the floor as he rummages through the sink cabinet.

Keigo switches on a hair buzzer. He drags it up over his forehead and then back down from the nape of his neck. Ashen blood hair falls around him, some of it coming out in clamps to rest on his shoulders. A ring of the hair wraps around his neck as his face reddens from the blood rushing to it. He begins to unleash his pent up emotion in a cry more cacophonous than a canary's. It's the shriek of a vulture.

Seated at her oval desk as always is the Madam President of the Hero Public Safety Commission. Behind her, the typically open glass panes to the building's high rise balcony are now closed and covered by blackout blinds. Her office had always been dimmed but this is a new level of darkness that not even Keigo's eyes are able to fully adjust to. The Chairwoman's figure is a silhouette, her facial features completely consumed by shadow.

"Trying out a new look I see", and yet she makes it known that she can still see him even if he's not quite capable of seeing her. Keigo picks at the raw blemishes based around his shaved skull, the marred markings matching the hand that he uses to do so. Madam President's eyes glimmer a tone of turquoise as she stares at how her hero operative wrecked his appearance.

"I acted on an impulse", Keigo admits that he wasn't thinking rationally at the time to make a logical decision in that department. However, he is also willing to admit that this outward change is something that he must embrace if he is to be as ugly on the outside as he is on the inside.

The Chairwoman hums. Though clearly meant to jest, "Your female fans may not like it very much", she speaks without a hint of actual amusement in her tone. It's just as much a very real criticism from her.

Keigo's feathers ruffle, his wings twitching. His damaged hand forms into a fist. The wound there reopens due to the pressure put on it. Blood starts to seep and stew. "I won't be having very much of any fans", he squeezes his fist tighter and more blood oozes out of it, "I'd like to turn in my resignation."

Madam President pauses, her reaction to her hero operative's resignation request hidden by the dark atmosphere that she sinks into with the reclinement of her desk chair. "This is clearly another irrational decision that you're making while not in your right mind", her remark gives Keigo another itch to scratch through the exposed surface of his head.

"So you're declining?", Keigo is rekindled with frustration. He's about to have another episode right then and there.

And the Chairwoman can see that quite clearly. If she didn't see it now in person, she had via the surveillance system that the HPSC uses to monitor its agents in their respective rooms. And that's the only reason that she compromises, "You can take a short leave of absence to clear your head."

Keigo stifles his initial argument that he doesn't want a break but rather a permanent leave. Some time away to do some more thinking isn't all that bad. He nods, agreeing to those terms. "Thank you, Madam President…" He bows and exits the office.

Once alone, the Chairwoman leans forward so that she can access the phone atop her desk. It dials out to a private number. The person on the other end is kept in the loop as much as she is, the entire board of the HPSC constantly monitoring one another as much as they do their underlings. And so she doesn't have to catch him up to speed on the subject matter of their call when she says, "We'll need to move forward with our backup plan sooner than expected."

The voice on the other end of the phone line is reluctant, "Are you sure that we can't convince Hawks to keep the limelight on him a while longer?"

"It's of no concern should this operation go well", Madam President smiles a sinister smile in the shaded scene of her office, "He can always be repurposed in such a case."

The fellow board member doesn't share her smile in the tone of his voice, "That's only if the operation goes well – This person, they are.. Unpredictably chaotic.."

"Who could have predicted what Hawks did now any better than what Lady Nagant did back then?", Madam President motions over her desk for the holographic computer system to activate, "This is a solution to our problem should we intend to maintain control for the future of hero society" She prompts the floating screens with a hovering keyboard to present folders & files of classified information.

"Very well", the Chairwoman's fellow Chairman finally agrees to go along with her suggested course of strategy, "We'll commence Project Deadpool."

Izuku Midoriya has to wonder who the heck in their right mind assigns projects this early into the school semester. Heroes that double as teachers for the prestigious programs at U.A, that's who. But it's not until he sees Present Mic going around the classroom to collect last night's assignments that he realizes this. And so, he's left with nothing to present for himself when the time comes for him to turn in the work he was supposed to have done. Mic holds out a hand, expectantly waiting to be given something anyway.

Izuku nervously tugs at the collar of his shirt, careful not to pull on it too much so that he doesn't show the spider emblem beneath it. It's not like he can explain himself with that alter ego persona of his; that he was busy being a vigilante won't be enough of a justification. So he has to come up with a lie instead. It's the oldest trick in the book but he's willing to test if it still works, "My dog ate my homework?"

It doesn't work. "Midoriya..", Present Mic's look of disappointment drops down with the sliding of his sunglasses. It's no secret that Izuku has been falling short in his lessons but that doesn't excuse the boy from doing what's been assigned either. "I'll give you until tomorrow to turn it in but don't think that I won't give you an F if you don't show some effort", Mic is generous enough to give Izuku an extension unlike Cementoss; for that, Izuku is gratefully relieved to slide under the radar unscathed once again.

"Thank you, sir!" Izuku bows as best as he can from his seated position. His fellow Gen Ed peers groan & complain about it being unfair that they have to do their work on time while he doesn't but Mic puts the matter to rest with a vocalization much louder than theirs.

As class carries into the morning and resumes, Izuku catches his friend's bombastic side eye from beside him. Shinso doesn't ever join in with the class but it's always been abundantly clear in their conversations that he doesn't much approve of the special treatment either. Those times make up for the lack of lecture from his mom if she were to find out about his lack of studying. And so, any time that he receives one from Shinso, he's taken to sarcastically saying 'Thanks Mom!'.

Izuku thinks about the worst case scenario should his mother be eventually called by one of his teachers. He shudders, the sensation he gets of forewarning much sharper honed than his Spider-Sense has ever been. At the rate that things have been going, he worries that it's only a matter of time. And he knows that his half assed excuses won't work on her because she knows him too well to fall for any sorry reasoning. So that means he'd inevitably have to tell her the truth. He places a hand over his chest, clenching the fabric of his shirt that covers up the spider emblem underneath.

Shinso has been undoubtedly getting even more suspicious about him as well. It's getting as hard as it is to hide from Inko his secret with him. As he grows closer to his friend, he grows dangerously closer to letting on a little too much about himself. It's been a struggle that he had to step away from. He's been ducking out on Shinso and avoiding too much interaction for fear of giving himself away. And now Shinso intends to corner him on the matter.

"I don't suppose you're going to do the homework that Mic assigned to you?", he catches Izuku about to sneak off right as the period ends. The two of them loiter between a hallway and a stairwell.

Izuku takes a step forward and then back, unable to go neither up or down; he's stuck in between where he's forced to give an answer. "I .. am?", but his mind is too preoccupied with the desire to do anything other than that to fully commit himself to the bit.

And so, of course Shinso picks up on and questions Izuku's indecision. "On the roof?", Shinso raises an eyebrow when he counts the floor levels to see where the stairs lead.

Izuku had once used the janitor's supply closet to slip out of the building before. But it's less stuffy to change and less likely to run the risk of the janitor walking in on him if he tends to do his Spider-Man transformation on the roof instead. So, even if his reasons for going there aren't the same as what Shinso would be led to believe, he goes with it. "Yes?"

There's a beat of silence as Shinso waits for an explanation. Izuku refrains from letting out a long winded sigh or groan. He doesn't like having to dig deeper his own graves of lies but it's become a habit he hates to admit that he's starting to get used to. "It's quiet there. I can eat my lunch while I do my homework", he also likes to believe that he's gotten better at it – for better or for worse – he sticks his tongue out at Shinso, "Shows what you know."

It's also not technically a complete lie if he does actually take bites out of the sandwich that his mom packed in his Bento Box as he dons his Spider-Man suit. Once he convinces Shinso to let him go, he bites down on both his food and a glove as he pulls a web patterned bootie up his leg. Getting dressed goes smoothly enough. And that's the only blessing that Izuku is allowed to get before he spots smoke in the distance from his roof perched position.

Spider-Man attaches a web line to a building's satellite antenna. He uses the anchor point as a means to swing himself up and around; he slows his airborne movements with a loop around before grabbing the tower as a support beam. It's from there that Spider-Man sees what that smoke signal was all about. It's just that. Some sort of a signal. A flare has been set off for one reason or another. Whether that reason is better than finding an actual fire or not remains to be known.

Spider-Man drops down onto the rooftop. Whether he's responding to an S.O.S of some kind or being baited into a trap, he courageously takes some steps forward. A quick glance left and right assesses that there's nobody up there with him. But sometimes the unseen is what's the most important thing to be aware of. His Spider-Sense triggers his natural instinct to move acrobatically & quickly. A bullet pierces the ground where he formerly stood.

Spider-Man tracks the projectile positioning with a fast glance, noting that there's a sniper somewhere. But he's unable to act in any other way just yet than dodging another gunshot. So it was a trap then. Specifically for him or for anybody that happens to stumble into it like Screwball and Gentle Criminal did their villainy doesn't matter. He just focuses on responding accordingly to the situation. Which is to trust his instincts and use them as a means to gradually get closer with every evasion of being gunned down.

Spider-Man swings himself up into the air where he hopes that making himself a moving target will cause the shooter more difficulty with their aim. It doesn't. The next bullet slices through the web line that he's using and causes him to fall. Spider-Man contorts his body, twisting his torso to dodge the secondary shot intended to finish what the first started. He's dealing with an expert marksman. That means he needs to move faster – and smarter – he begins running along the walled surfaces of neighboring buildings in order to use them both as platforms to spring from and corners of cover.

He believes his strategy is working when the next gunshot misses its mark entirely. He hears the bullet whizzing by but doesn't feel a close proximity like he had with the others. He's just about to dismiss it as a misfire. Except, he hears a pinging unlike the previous impacts of what had been missed shots. And his Spider-Sense alerts him to what he suspects is strange already. Spider-Man unsticks from the wall that he's on just in the knick of time to dodge a bullet coming at him from behind. It was a ricochet!

Spider-Man free falls until coming under a fire escape. He uses the system of platforms and ladders as a means of grappling himself back up. Once pulling his body over a roof's ledge, he somersaults and sprints for the next available building to run along. He's getting closer and closer to the shooter's position. Which is proving to be just as dangerous as it is a good thing. The gunshots are starting to get much more precise, the closer proximity making them harder to dodge.

But Spider-Man can fire projectiles too. He extends an arm and presses down on the throttle of the web shooter attached to its wrist. Instead of spraying out a long thin strand of webbing, he keeps his fingers on it only briefly enough to spurt out a small amount of the sticky substance. It launches a projectile of balled up webbing. And the ball effectively counters a bullet.

The vigilante flips himself forward at the open window that he knows the sniper is shooting from. It's a risky maneuver that he knows not even his Spider-Sense might save him from, but it's what his flow of body movement leads him to do. A bullet grazes by his shoulder, not doing anything more than scratching it, but it's just enough to throw him off course. Spider-Man flies past the sniper and crashes into a couch.

He rolls himself over with the tumble, forcing the couch to turn over with him. Good thing too since a bullet strikes the furniture in between him and the marksman. He kicks out a leg to give the couch a strong shove. It slides across the room and takes out the sniper's footing as intended. Spider-Man uses that as an opportunity to spring off from the floor and stick himself to the ceiling where he can get his own vantage point on who he's fighting.

Spider-Man stares into a mask much like his own. It's missing the web pattern and the white lenses are replaced with black splotches, but it's just as overly cherry red. Trailing out from behind the masked marksman's mask is a purple ponytail. Spider-Man's eyes expand when he realizes who he's fighting is a woman. The rest of her uniform is a matching color pattern of her face covering, a red and black design crossing around her entire body.

"You're… ?", Spider-Man's pause of confusion makes the mercenary out to get him tilt her head in equal confusion. But that mutual muddlement is short lived. The woman takes another shot at the boy, forcing him to compromise his ceiling position.

She places one hand on her jutted out hip while priming the other as an organic rifle crafted from the crook of her elbow to make her literally armed and dangerous. "Were you expecting them to send a man to do a woman's job?", she speaks in a tone that's something partially sassy and partially sarcastic while giving Spider-Man a once over.

"..There's literally no way for me to answer that without sounding sexist.." Spider-Man struggles with a witty retort this time around. Between the two of them, it's the merc who has the mouth here.

The woman primes her organic firearm, simultaneously plucking a strand of hair from the stream of it pooling out of her mask; the hair molds like putty into a makeshift bullet for her to use. "Sorry to ruin the potential of a bromance for you, kid!" She shoots at him from within the enclosed space, forcing the vigilante to duck from the living room to the kitchen.

Spider-Man moves around a bar top, staying low so that he doesn't make himself an easy target. From there, he can see his enemy through the reflection of the refrigerator opposing his position. She's reloading her quirk created rifle with her quirk crafted bullets. Spider-Man bides his time, waiting for the right moment. As he does, he keeps up the conversation per his usual battles with villains. "Can't we talk this out, lady… ?"

"Deadpool", the bullet she fires ricochets off the fridge and forces Spider-Man to jump aside in order to not be shot, "Lady Deadpool! Much sexier a name than Lady Nagant, wouldn't you say!? …You have hit puberty, right?"

Spider-Man crawls along the space between the kitchen island he was hiding behind and the oven. As he does, he throws his opponent a quick glance. He curses himself for not identifying her sooner via her quirk. She was the pro hero Lady Nagant at a point, apparently. Now, she's going by Lady Deadpool for whatever reason. He won't share his thoughts on whether or not that's sexy like she's suggesting – he's too busy trying to stay alive for starters – but he's focused on figuring out why she isn't in Tartarus Prison and why she's trying to kill him.

"The HPSC gave you a second chance after I exposed Hawks?", he has a few theories already but he begins with the one that seems most likely.

"Bingo!", Lady Deadpool confirms the simplified version of how she came to be here hunting him down as a mercenary before giving the killing job another shot; she shoots at the ceiling light this time, it loses its structural integrity and falls to nearly land on Spider-Man who dodges right before it can. "It's more DC than Marvel, but think of it as a slightly similar situation to The Suicide Squad!"

Spider-Man squints at the assassin who is seemingly starting to spew nonsense, "What?"

She sighs, mildly miffed that she has to pause this intense action sequence for an elaborate exposition dump. "I was hoping to spare the reader with an easier explanation but I guess I may as well give you the whole spiel sooner rather than later. Basically there was some experimentation done to my brain chemistry to get me back on board with the system – my mind was already pretty messed up from mental trauma so it wasn't too hard for them to repurpose and rewire my brain over time. They wanted a perfect soldier who would follow orders, hence Project Dpool Diddy Doo (Hey! That's me!) and that obviously came with whatever legal stuff comes with villains working for the government comes with. Long story short, because you started Hawks on his character arc, I'm here to fill the space in between with a cool cameo that Pikapowerz from FanFiction Dot Net asked for!"

"...I only understood about half of that", Spider-Man continues to squint at and study the strange character in front of him. She's clearly lost her marbles per her brain experimentation backstory.

"Good enough for me!", but Lady Deadpool doesn't bother with the long winded explanation anymore and resumes their battle by shooting at Spider-Man again.

So Spider-Man decides to drop it and leave it at that, taking her tale with a grain of salt. He springs from wall to ceiling to floor, clearing the short distance between them. Once up close and personal, he bats her rifle arm aside and tackles her through the open window positioned behind her.

Lady Deadpool struggles against Spider-Man, her firearm held back by his hold. Despite it being turned at an angle, she pulls the trigger and shoots. It's meant to make the vigilante let go and he does. Spider-Man pushes off from her, separating from their scuffle. "How did the HPSC know to send you after me? Don't they think I'm dead like Hawks?", he keeps trying to pry information out of her since she's proven herself to be the talkative type.

She shrugs. "Minor plot hole", the mercenary takes aim and shoots. Spider-Man leaps away, dodging the bullet by flipping himself into a frontal roll to land in an alley. "Who cares when it means nonsensically glorified character cameos?!", Lady Deadpool pursues him with a sword she unsheathes from her back.

He side steps a swing of the blade. She isn't as skilled as The Hero Hunter. No, swords were never Lady Nagant's weapon of expertise. She's more of a long ranged fighter. He uses that to his advantage, smacking it aside and shoving her. "Look, I know you've been through a lot, and I'm sorry that you had to experience all of it" He kicks her arm that doubles as a gun upward so that it shoots at the sky instead of him. "But I also know that there's still some semblance of who you used to be still inside you! They didn't take it all!"

Lady Deadpool raises her sword over her head, but stops it there, not going for the cut. Her hesitation holds for a second, making Spider-Man believe that he's getting through to her. But when she lowers the katana, it isn't to surrender, it's to sulk. "Oh for fuck sake… Are we really doing this Shonen bullshit right now?"

"I'm serious!", Spider-Man webs the sword and yanks it out of her hand while she's got her guard down. "I know that you aren't taking this seriously", but his second web line doesn't achieve the same effect of capturing her firearm when it shoots the string mid spin. "If you were, you would have shot me by now!"

"That's only because you're the main character and it's too early in the story to do something like kill you off!", the mercenary fires off another round to refute the vigilante's point. Spider-Man keeps maneuvering in a manner that keeps him from getting gunned down. "Plus I'm a Deadpool reinvention, not Bullseye!" Lady Deadpool blames her poor aim on her characterization and not just plot armor for sake of sparing the author's accusations over lazy writing.

"I don't know what you're saying but I'm willing to bet it's some form of denial", Spider-Man uses a web line to pull himself up and over the hero turned mercenary. "A coping mechanism", his psycho analysis of her has her reeling as she tries keeping track of his acrobatic movements. "If you weren't still also Lady Nagant, you would have just called yourself Deadpool!"

"Nu uh", Lady Deadpool just keeps doing what she does best and shoots at Spider-Man some more. Because gun violence solves everything, of course.

"What do you mean 'nu uh' ?!", Spider-Man swings himself down to take cover behind a parked car. There he's able to use the vehicle as a shield for a while.

The gun toting woman sprays the car with bullets as she talks, "Lady Nagant and Lady Deadpool being similar name archetypes was a sweet coincidence that the author could be cheeky about so–"

"Stop acting like this is some meta fictional story!", Spider-Man overturns his corner cover with a show of spider strength; using that same flex of power, he also pushes the large heap of metal towards Lady Deadpool to make her have to throw herself aside in order to not get crushed. When she hits the ground, she looks up to see that he's already upon her, "This is REAL", he hoists her up by the front of her uniform to give her a firm shake, "If you kill me.. You'll be having the blood of a kid on your hands like Hawks! For REAL this time!", and then he throws her back down to the ground.

She's thrown off by his advancement and his words. But what really gets to her is when she sees his fist unfold into an open palm; Spider-Man extends his hand towards the fallen hero for her to take and be picked back up. Seeing a kid reaching out to her is enough to give her a PTSD moment. Her hand, covered by a red glove, looks a lot like it's coated in the blood of the people that she's killed.

"Damn you!", she smacks his hand aside in order to prevent herself from going into a flashback sequence of some kind. She opts for her opposite arm, the one that's morphed into a weapon. "Stop ruining this and just let it be a cool fight sequence!", she shoots at his head but the bullet misses its mark completely without him even really needing to dodge it this time.

Spider-Man stands his ground, trusting his Spider-Sense and his sense of judgment that she won't come anywhere close to shooting him should she try again. "What? Would you rather we have some witty banter back and forth?", he skewers his stare through the eye lens of his mask.

"Yes!", Lady Deadpool jumps up to her feet and steps closer into his space that her boobs nearly press against his chest, "Just play along!"

But not even that is enough to make Spider-Man stand down. He crosses his arms and says, "Not gonna happen" He doesn't do anything when Lady Deadpool points the muzzle of her firearm at the spider emblem on his chest either.

She presses the tip of her organic weapon flush up against his sternum. But even having a staredown to go along with their little standoff isn't able to make the naive kid waver. He's defiant and certain of his declaration that it's actually the broken minded woman who starts to lose nerve. She's about to force herself to carry out her mission anyways. She nearly pulls the trigger on her rifle. But.. She just simply can't.

She swings the rifle away, casting it aside. Lady Deadpool shouts, "Fuck!", and then again a little louder, "FUUUUCK!" She was hoping to be bested in cool combat. Not like this.

"See?", Spider-Man uncrosses his arms so that he can reach out to her with them. Whether he's going to try to pull her into a hug or do something else, he doesn't get the chance. She interrupts him when he starts to say, "I told you–"

"You wanna be a hero so badly?", she points her firearm off to the side. Spider-Man turns his head to follow its aim. His white eye lens widen when he sees that she's pointing the gun at a busy toll bridge. "Go save someone other than me", she shoots a part of the structure's support pillars to make it give way.

Spider-Man doesn't hesitate. He forgets about her and runs to the rescue like the typical trope embodiment that he is. The vigilante lays on thick globs of webbing to keep the support system together despite it being compromised. But that isn't enough to stop a car from ramming into one of the bridge's railings. It's pinned by steel and bound to be crushed. He rebounds to pull the driver out, not willing to let that happen.

Spider-Man goes to lift the railing off of the car. But in doing so, he realizes that it's too unstable for him to do that. He can't run the risk of making the car tip over the side of the bridge. Spider-Man backs up, reconsidering his course of action to save the day. He looks around his environment, searching for alternative solutions.

Spider-Man tears a lamp post free from the ground in order to use as a tool. He wedges it between the car and the railing, using it to pry the vehicle loose. It works for a while. But even that is too much of an applied pressure on such an unsturdy surface. The car begins to tilt and slide. Spider-Man starts to panic.

A bullet whizzes by his head. The gunshot takes out one of the car's tires. The deflation is enough to even out the balance of the equilibrium. Spider-Man looks back, spotting the marksman who has positioned herself behind him. Lady Deadpool waves with her free hand, having come back to help. "Is that a lamp post in your hands or are you just happy to see me?", she teases him despite the sensitivity of the situation that she caused; he decides to let it slide since she did help him in the rescue, successfully saving the driver now.

Spider-Man tosses the pole aside once he gets the civilian out safely. As for the rest of the traffic on the bridge, they've already fled from their vehicles and evacuated. Spider-Man leaves from his spot and allows the structure to collapse now that nobody is in harm's way. Atop a roof, he watches the dust settle from an otherwise crazy experience.

"A bit of a contrived moment, but still pretty sweet! Right?" He spins himself around when Lady Deadpool announces her presence. She's sitting atop a water tower, legs dangling just enough for her to swing them back and forth like a child younger than he is.

"This isn't a game", Spider-Man frowns through his mask as he points an angry finger at her, "Someone could have gotten hurt back there! Or worse… Killed."

Lady Deadpool drops down from her perch, landing on her feet and then dusting herself off. "Yeah.. That woulda probably been a tough thing to work with when it comes to my redemption..", she muses mostly to herself but it's still a statement loud enough for Spider-Man to hear.

"Your redemption?", he stops pointing at her as he lowers his arm. It's a bit of a shock to hear her say after all that, even with her assistance. "So you actually stopped to consider what I was saying then?", he cautiously broaches the subject since he isn't sure where her head is at after it being experimented on so much.

"That's the power of friendship for ya!", she gives him double peace signs as though that is confirmation enough for him to trust her now.

"Right…", Spider-Man sighs since he has no choice but to accept it as enough for the time being.

She begins twirling her ponytail on one finger, coyly playing with it. "So where do we go from here? Are we gonna be a vigilante dynamic duo? Am I gonna be your sidekick even though I'm the more experienced one here?", the woman acts nonchalant about her suggestions but each one sounds worse than the last to the boy.

"Uh.. No.. Not quite..", Spider-Man shakes his head. He has to fight the urge to drag a hand down his face. In order to stop himself, he places both hands on his hips. "Look, um, do you think you could do something like testify in court against the HPSC?"

"Pft! Bor-iiiinnng!", Lady Deadpool throws a hand over her shoulder like she's tossing the suggestion off the roof that they're on, "Nobody wants to deal with legal jargon in a story based on a battle manga."

"It's a start towards bringing down a corrupt organization", Spider-Man starts stepping forward when he sees that he's starting to lose her again. Hoping to convince the remnant of sanity still trapped somewhere inside the woman, he begs her to help. "It's not like Hawks or anybody else is going to volunteer to do it", he gets close enough to her that she has to listen to him. "Please, all they need to do is see your face at the stand–"

"You mean this face?", but Lady Deadpool stops him short before he can really get anywhere. She pulls off her mask to reveal what's underneath. What's there is not what looks anything remotely like Nady Nagant did, aside from her hair. Her skin is gnarled, patches of raw flesh exposed as though she received permanent third degree burns.

Izuku is at a loss for words. If he can't recognize her as the hero that the world did anymore, then he doubts anybody else would be able to either. When she had mentioned experimentation, she did so casually that he hadn't expected to see this. Whatever they did to her left permanent scars. Not just mentally, but physically as well.

"They could probably do a DNA test and all kinds of stuff to confirm my identity", the damaged woman shrugs like it's no big deal afterall, "It might even help plead our case to shut down The Commission" Except, there's still a lingering hint of uncertainty to what she's saying that gives both of them a moment of pause. "But.. I'd rather look at it as a chance at having a new identity.. One separate from who I was", she stares down at the mask that she's holding; her hand clenches it, tightening her grip, "I don't want to be what the HPSC made me to be and this is my chance to be someone else."

Izuku can understand that somewhat. Her face reflects in the lens of his own mask. Every time that he becomes Spider-Man, it feels different from when he's not Spider-Man. "You're thinking of fleeing Japan?", he follows along with what she's implying about her decision to start over and makes the only logical assumption that one would have about it.

Lady Deadpool loses her somberness, replacing the expression with a giddy grin. "It's an easy way to write me out but also a way to still be able to bring me back for a final battle or something."

"I'll take it that's your way of saying you'll stay in touch if I ever need help", Spider-Man accepts her answer for what it is even if he's back to square one with the HPSC. "Same goes here", he holds out his hand for her to shake in order to seal the terms of their agreed arrangement, "Feel free to ask me for help if you ever need it."

Lady Deadpool's eyes widen in shock. For the first time ever, the outstretched hand of a kid can be taken without bloodying it with her own. She blinks back her shock. A smile overcomes her. And she accepts the handshake. It's a custom that she'll have to get used to if she's going to make a move to America. But before then…

She keeps her grip on Spider-Man's hand in order to pull him towards her. The vigilante stumbles into the mercenary, cushioned from a rough impact by her soft bust. With him drawn so close, she's able to bend down and plant her mouth over his own. She kisses him through his mask, her tongue fighting to poke through the fabric of it.

Izuku pushes himself away from her, completely appalled. "I'm a minor!", he sputters and spits whereas the older woman licks her lips to savor their swapped saliva.

"It's okay! This is FanFiction and ships have no bounds here!", Lady Deadpool pulls her mask back on while giving him a flirtatious wink. She leans herself back to fall over the rooftop ledge behind her.

Izuku rushes to check on her, only to see that she's completely vanished. He's not sure which to be more stunned about. Her disappearance or the farewell smooch. Either way, he has to unfold the bottom part of his mask to wipe at his mouth with the back of his hand. It's not that he was put off by her newfound appearance or anything. It's just that he can't cope with the fact that it happened. How can Spider-Man ever live down having his first kiss stolen from him by Deadpool?!

Later that night, Izuku remembers the true folly of masks and his youth. He comes home at an hour he typically would never dare stay out to. But took that chance since searching the city for Lady Deadpool became a prerogative. He climbs in through his bedroom window and switches from costume to pajamas. He believes he can seamlessly sneak in without his mom being the wiser. But as he's turning over the covers of his bed to get into it, Mama Midoriya opens the door to his room and walks in on him.

He's too tired to jump or react in any true outward manner to express being startled, but he is absolutely terrified of the repercussions that ought to come with his sneaked late night return home. Izuku prepares to grovel and apologize at his mother's feet. Before he can though, she surprisingly smiles at him. "Good morning!", that was certainly not what he had been expecting.

But as the sun slowly slides up to bring the morning, light pours in through the window behind him to help him understand. "It's good to see you making your bed", she mistakenly believes he has been here the whole time. Somehow, she doesn't see the heavy bags under her boy's eyes.

"Oh.. Yeah.. Mhm..", Izuku folds his bed sheets back over to complete the illusion of what his mom mistakenly thought. Even though he wants nothing more than to collapse on the cot and fall asleep, he instead forces himself to carry on without any rest.

"Finish up and come down for breakfast", Inko turns around and leaves her son to his morning routine, "You don't want to be late for school", simultaneously reminding him of what it entails.

Izuku's mind snaps awake at the mention of school. U.A being as shady as the HPSC aside, he still has class to attend. And with those classes, assignments. Izuku slaps a palm to his forehead, "Ah! Man! I forgot to do my homework for Present Mic!"

AUTHOR NOTES

While it probably wasn't what anyone was expecting, I hope that the Deadpool character mashup with Lady Nagant was still satisfactory! It was just too golden an opportunity to miss, for me personally!

I'm particularly interested in your takeaway, Pikapowerz, since the inclusion stemmed from your suggestion of introducing Deadpool to begin with!

I'm curious as to your thoughts as well, Mob.k! Twice seemed too obvious a choice considering he's the canon archetype but it was a good guess!

All good points, Wynnt'r, but this chapter is a good example of how unpredictable I can be - so we'll just have to wait and see!

Ah, a fair question, fwflygon! While I don't have any plans as of now to do anything involving the Spider-Verse, it is still pretty early in the story and I wouldn't rule anything out for the foreseeable future (maybe something waaayyy at the very end).

Anyways, if this chapter came as a SHOCK to you all, then the next chapter just might SHOCK you as well! (Not-so-subtle hint hint nudge nudge!) Till then!

-Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood chimichanga!