Chapter Text
The first time they meet, it’s snowing.
The buildings were lined with the stuff, making New York City look as picturesque as the movies tricked people into thinking it was. It’s the nice type of snow, too— the powdery kind that falls in large clumps, turning the world into a perfect little snowglobe.
Peter hated patrolling when it was snowing.
It was cold, it was wet, and ice hid under the layers of white. Foot tracks trailed behind him, which means doing anything stealth was a hell of a lot more difficult than he likes. Sometimes the footprints helped him catch some people on the run. Most of the time, it just led people to him. His suit wasn’t built for this type of weather. He, honestly, wasn’t built for this type of weather.
Peter grumbles as he shakes. The shaking does nothing to warm him but the placebo effect is enough to convince him otherwise. He wouldn’t normally be out under these conditions except this lead is the most important breakthrough he’s had in weeks .
Across from his hidden position, two men discuss something. They’re hunched close together on the rooftop below. Unbeknownst to them, Spider-man is hiding between the metal bars of a roof tank a few meters away. Peter can tell by their fancy clothing that they aren’t huddled for warmth, but rather for secrecy, and he’s trying to eavesdrop on their conversation but he’s having trouble due to the howling winds that blast this high up. Why they decided to meet outside when it was snowing is beyond Peter’s comprehension.
Maybe it was for the aesthetic.
Peter chuckles to himself at the thought. Yeah, right.
When the men reenter the building, Peter jumps forward and down, sticking to the surface in case he lands on ice. He’d been waiting for them to leave so he could follow behind, knowing that a nearby exhaust vent would link him to a ventilation system that floated above all of the major hallways of the building.
Easy stuff.
Before crawling into the vent, Peter shakes himself and kicks his feet against the brick, getting most of the snow off of him. The last thing he wants is small puddles of snow water lining his path. He was so ready to be inside the warm building.
Not wasting any more time, Peter skillfully removes the screws holding the grate in place and crawls in. It’s roomy, thank goodness, and easy for him to maneuver in, which is always a good sign. It doesn’t smell bad, either. Maybe this will be easier than anticipated.
Once he replaces the vent properly, he thwips out a web; it goes sailing, attaching to the metal at the end of the tunnel about 30 feet ahead. He gives an experimental tug. Nothing comes loose or seems to move, which is yet another good sign.
“Great craftsmanship,” Peter whispers to himself. Seriously, he’s impressed! A lot of the buildings in this area weren’t too old, maybe 10 to 15 years tops, but they’re always built quickly and cheaply, creating a lot of minor problems that stack only to become big problems in no time. Surprising no one, they always cut corners with the ventilation systems.
He decides to weigh the pros and cons of quickly building skyscrapers in his head while he zips through the tunnel. Really, it’s a no-brainer— building slower means more time to ensure good quality, and rushing something delicate like a high stack ventilation system could compromise the integrity of the building. Plus, it harms the environment, to just throw in an HVAC system instead of engineering something efficient like cross-section ventilation. It’s expensive, too. Maybe if New Yorkers relied more on nature to cool their offices, they’d be less inclined to ignore the smog issue the city has been dealing with for decades.
Peter is just about ready to create the pros list when he reaches the end of the tunnel. It breaks off to the left and to the right. He must be east of the office he’s trying to follow these men to, if he remembers the blueprints correctly.
Good, everything is going as expected.
On paper, it was an easy mission; track down these two specific men, wait for them to meet up at this building, follow them to their boss’s office, watch and memorize the password (or, passwords) that are entered into the computer, Spider-man his way down from the ceiling after they leave, get the necessary information to turn over to the authorities and boom, bop, bam. Done.
But, like most things on paper, reality had other ideas, along with a few different curve balls thrown Peter’s way.
First off, it had taken almost nine stupid, long weeks for the two guys to meet up, and that was after an excruciating four weeks of tracking them down. One must have been overseas or something, Peter wasn’t sure. All he knew was that finding Thing Two was near impossible until one day he suddenly showed up. So, maybe he had been enjoying a wonderful trip to Miami to escape New York’s chilly weather before he was to return to his criminal lifestyle. Who knows.
Second off, Peter hadn’t anticipated them to take nine weeks to meet up. Sure, there had been Thanksgiving, Chanukah, Christmas, then the New Year, but since when did criminals care about the holiday season? These ones did, apparently. Due to the delay, Peter hadn’t taken the weather into account. Harsher weather meant harsher attitudes, and according to the addition law of probability, that meant Peter’s chances of being pissy himself and simultaneously running into equally pissed off bastards rose exponentially. To like, nearly 100%, if his calculations were correct. Peter knew they were. The post-holiday season always brought out the worst in people.
Third off, there was someone in the vents with him.
Peter freezes, staring at the stranger.
This additional person completely throws the rest of his carefully crafted plan right into the trash, which was now on fire and everything he’d been working on the last three months goes up in smoke. Who the hell was this person?
The other either doesn’t notice Spider-man is a few meters away from them, or they don’t care. Peter’s thinking it’s the latter, especially because they seemed relaxed; they have their hands threaded together under their chin and they’re laying on their stomach, kicking their feet back and forth in the air while they look down through the vent that leads to the office Peter needs to get to. Peter’s confused by the demeanor— it reminds him of the way teenage girls would talk on their rotary phones as they painted their nails and talked about boys in the cheesy ‘80s flicks that MJ always made him watch.
“Shhh,” the stranger hushes Peter loudly, defeating the point of silencing Peter, “They’re about to say some real Bad Guy shit, and I wanna know what they’ve been hiding these past few months.” They’re still staring down at the same spot, not looking up in Peter’s direction.
Past few months?! Peter had been on this trail for presumably the same amount of time if ‘few’ meant ‘three’ to this person. How could someone have slipped by him for so long?
Peter’s still crouching in the same spot, unmoving. This was overwhelming and completely unexpected, and it led him to a new point of urgency.
His spidey senses hadn’t gone off. They still weren’t going off. This was wrong.
It’s a double-sided blade for him, right now; since his senses were calm, that meant this person wasn’t an immediate threat, but since they weren’t going off, Peter had no idea how to approach this scenario.
The other person finally looks up and lets out an exaggerated gasp, slapping their hands against their cheeks in surprise.
“Ohmigosh,” they whisper, rushed, “It’s Spider-man!”
Peter cocks his head to the side. He doesn’t recognize this person.
“Um,” he matches the volume of the other person, “Who are you?”
“You sound so cute in person! I knew you’d be just as cute in person as you are in videos!” is the gleeful response he gets.
Peter blushes under his mask. What the hell, were they flirting with Peter? They just met! Barely. Not really. He didn’t even know their name yet.
“I’m Deadpool! Canada’s pride and joy, New York City’s newest mercenary, and your number one fanboy!”
Mercenary? Does that mean—
“You kill people for a living?!” Peter lets out an incredulous gasp, physically recoiling from the information. Shit, did that mean he was after Peter’s guys? He can’t have them dying, he just found them!
Deadpool flaps one of his hands in front of his face, the other still cradling his chin, and somehow the eyes of his mask do an eye roll, “Well, kinda! Usually, I just maim, threaten, or seriously injure, depending on the pay. Killing’s expensive— and who is looking to blow stacks in this economy? But it’s always bad guys! You know, the type of people the world doesn’t need!”
“You don’t have the right to determine that!” Peter hisses, trying to keep his volume down despite his disgust. A tight knot was forming in his stomach the longer he crouched near this person.
“Why not?” Deadpool whines softly and, shocking Peter, he even pouts about it, “But they’re big, scary Bad Guys. With a capital ‘B’ and ‘G’! Sometimes they even get the little trademark logo next to ‘Bad Guys’!”
Peter shakes his head. What the hell was this guy even talking about? “You can’t be judge, jury, and executioner, that’s so unethical and just…it’s wrong , Deadpool!”
“Oh,” Deadpool purrs a little, making Peter feel odd. He leans forward and laces his hands back under his chin, “We like when you say my name!”
Again, Peter has no idea what Deadpool is talking about. He’s confused more than he was a few minutes ago when he first saw Deadpool, which is always a bad sign. It’s not just a bad sign, it’s a terrible sign.
“Are you here for them?” Deadpool whispers, pointing down to the room below. The men Peter has been tracking were finally in the office, talking amongst themselves, unaware of the two above them. Their voices are low, careful, and still difficult for Peter to hear, now that Deadpool was here talking and distracting him from his mission.
He needs to get back on track. Think, Parker, think.
After a beat of debating in his head, Peter nods slowly, unsure if it’s the right move. Should he be telling Deadpool this information? If they were both after the same ring of people, maybe they could find common ground and work together. Without killing anyone.
“Ugh,” Deadpool groans, “That sucks! I didn’t want to actually do this, but—”
Peter’s spidey senses blare so violently they nearly cause him to topple over. Before he’s registering his movements, he’s webbed a gun to the wall of the vent and is pulling another one out of Deadpool’s other hand. When the gun makes its way to Peter, he drops it like it’s scalding, not thinking about the safety precautions he should be taking with a live, loaded weapon. The loud clattering the gun makes could possibly be passed off as an animal or trash passing through the vent, he hoped. Maybe the guys below would just ignore it.
“Woah!” Deadpool snickers as he points to the webbed gun to his right, “Wish that was me!”
Peter makes a face and internally curses at himself, wishing that comment didn’t affect him the way it did. Now he definitely couldn’t web Deadpool up, knowing he’d enjoy it.
This was bad.
“I’m not trying to take your target,” Peter whispers cautiously, nudging the gun behind him once he clicks the safety on, “I’m trying to stop them! Maybe we can work together!”
Deadpool lets out a loud, guttural laugh. The men in the room below stop talking.
That definitely can’t be passed up as some random noise.
Great, cover blown.
“Aw, Spidey,” Deadpool says at a normal volume, wiping his finger against his mask like he was wiping away tears from laughing hard, “I’m not here for them. I’m here for you .”
The sudden tone shift in Deadpool’s voice makes Peter’s senses blare again. Deadpool literally pounces like a wild animal towards him. Peter throws his body to the side, no longer worrying about keeping his cover. His head slams back against the metal and his vision swims for a second, giving Deadpool enough of an advantage to catch him while his guard is down, and Peter’s ankle ends up in Deadpool’s grasp. He kicks wildly with his other foot, making sure he doesn’t accidentally bash Deadpool’s face in with his super strength; he hears Deadpool’s collarbone snap and his shoulder dislocate. Peter tugs on his leg, expecting it to be freed, but instead, Deadpool’s grip tightens.
Any normal person would be screaming and would have let go if their bones had been broken, but all that leaves Deadpool is a small grunt that sounds more frustrated than it sounds hurt.
Peter’s brain is going through a million thoughts at once— maybe Deadpool didn’t feel pain? The guys in the room below were definitely hearing them, right? What if he knew Peter’s identity? Had the men fled the room? How long had Deadpool been following him? God, he needed to piss, had he looked for a bathroom on the blueprints?
“Let go of me!” Peter says, squirming. With a quarter of his ability, he punches the grate Deadpool had been hovering over earlier, and it slams into the floor.
“Agh!” Peter yells, falling backward through the vent with Deadpool still attached to his ankle. He shoots out a web and tries to hit the ceiling, but Deadpool blocks it by sticking his hand in front of the trajectory. Peter’s eyes go wide as he thinks ‘what the fuck’. His webs were almost as fast as bullets, people weren’t supposed to be able to move at the same speed as them. That was kind of the best advantage he had with them.
They crash into the office’s desk together, effectively destroying it with their velocity alone. Papers go everywhere and a few sparks fly from the computer that Deadpool stabbed with a katana in a vain effort to soften his landing.
The computer that Peter needed.
“Seriously?!” Peter wheezes underneath Deadpool.
“O-M-G,” Deadpool giggles, literally spelling out the acronym, “This is just like in anime!”
Peter’s head is swimming again from the impact. It’s much worse this time since this fall was about three hundred times harder than when he threw himself in the tunnel. Breathing was also difficult, seeing as how Deadpool had almost all of his weight pressed against him. So, that probably wasn’t helping his head.
“What?! No, it isn’t!”
“You’re right,” Deadpool agrees, nodding slightly, “You’d need to be in a schoolgirl outfit for this to be anime. Or hentai. Are they the same thing?”
If it had been any other situation, Peter would have ignored the comment— it wasn’t like Deadpool knew he was trans, so it wasn’t malicious. Considering how everything had gone to shit in about ten minutes after three months of work, Peter couldn’t hold back his rage.
“NO!” Peter screams. He bends his legs under Deadpool and pushes hard, sending the other man into the air. Deadpool breaks through the ceiling above Peter, his lower half dangling from it.
“Okay! Okay,” Deadpool’s voice is muffled. He’s flailing his legs around, trying to find purchase on a part of the ceiling, “I can be the girl, I’m down with whatever! Gender is dumb!”
Peter jumps to his feet and looks around the room, taking in the damage that they had caused. Other than the demolished desk and the computer with a katana through it, things were relatively fine. The men were gone, which was unsurprising and extremely frustrating.
Peter scowls. Great. Back to square one. Except for this time, the two will know Spider-man is on their trail.
A chunk of drywall falls near Peter, barely missing his shoulder. He looks up and sees Deadpool through a freshly cut hole. He’s holding a large hunting knife and is waving down at Peter, “Hi, Spidey! I missed you!”
“Hi,” Peter responds, automatically raising his hand to wave back. He was used to normal people greeting him when they saw him around New York City; at this point, it was like pavlovian conditioning in him to respond without thinking about it. He drops his hand and curses at himself.
“Hey!” Deadpool barks suddenly. He draws his gun and points it at Peter, “No! Bad!”
Peter dives out of the way as a shot rings out. It misses him, and from the sound of it, it misses him by a lot. When no pain registers in any part of his body, Peter laughs, “Wow, with all the guns you have, I’d expect you to be a better shot!”
Deadpool swings himself down from the ceiling and lands a foot away from Peter, “What do you mean?”
Peter looks at Deadpool as he realizes the shot hadn’t missed him. It wasn’t meant to hit him. It was meant for someone else.
A disgusting gurgling sound confirms Peter’s fear.
“No,” Peter’s not sure who he’s talking to— all he can think about is Uncle Ben, crumpled on the sidewalk and bleeding to death from the gunshot that inevitably killed him. The event had been almost a decade ago but in the moment, it felt like Peter was back on that street, begging anyone around to call for help.
Deadpool walked forward casually like he hadn’t just committed one of the worst crimes Peter could think of.
“Please,” Peter’s crying. He hadn’t even realized he was, “Don’t make me look at it.”
“Jeez, Webs,” Deadpool’s voice is loud behind him, “If I had known it would upset you so much, I would have aimed a bit lower. You sure you don’t want to be the girl in our anime?”
Peter spins around and launches himself at Deadpool, whose back is turned to him. It’s a cheap surprise attack, but Peter’s done playing fair and he’s done with Deadpool. When he attacks Deadpool, he barely holds back; he grabs Deadpool around the waist and throws him through the glass wall of the office, creating a sea of shiny, bloody shards that fall all around.
“SHUT UP!” Peter screams.
He doesn’t relent— he follows Deadpool into the hallway and kicks him around, just for good measure. High pitched tinkling from glass pieces falling out of Deadpool makes Peter grit his teeth. When Deadpool slumps into the floor, Peter picks him up and slams his body into the wall. His vision tunnels and he starts going into a violent zone that he hates to be in, and it’s hard for him to get out of it.
One of his fists is sailing towards Deadpool’s solar plexus when Deadpool reaches out and grabs Peter’s forearm. The sudden hold feels like cold water being poured over Peter’s head, snapping him out of his trance. Deadpool turns his back so it’s no longer against the wall and crouches down quickly, pulling Peter forward. He uses the momentum from Peter’s punch against him, causing him to do some sort of weird summersault over Deadpool. Peter’s back slams against the ground, hard, knocking all of the breath out of him.
Deadpool crawls over Peter. Peter is expecting an attack from above, probably to his face, so he braces himself for impact.
Instead, Deadpool sits cross-legged on Peter’s chest, propping his head on his hand. He flicks Peter’s mask right at his nose, “Are you ready to have a conversation now, young man?”
Peter stares at the ceiling, his heartbeat thumps erratically in his rib cage.
Again, his Spidey-senses aren’t going off.
He’s tired, he’s in pain, and he wants this to end as quickly and easily as possible.
“Fine,” Peter growls, “Let’s have a conversation.”
“Yay!” Deadpool exclaims, “Now that you’re calm, let me introduce myself! The name’s Deadpool, or Pool, for short. My favorite color is red, although I’m starting to like blue a lot more now because your ass looks mighty fine in it. If my phone rings, I smash it until it stops because seriously, what psychopath keeps their ringer on anymore? This ain’t the mid-naughts any longer, everyone’s ringtones suck! I remember back in the day—”
The introduction doesn’t help Peter at all. Was this how criminals felt whenever he would talk to them incessantly, trying to frustrate them enough to cause them to drop their guard?
Shit, was that what Deadpool was doing now?
“—and one time, I was riding the bus to school— this was in Canada, of course— and fucking Bobby McGee was sitting in my spot—”
“There’s no way you went to school with someone named Bobby McGee,” Peter cuts him off, “That’s a Janis Joplin song.”
Deadpool rocks back and forth on Peter’s chest happily, “Oh, you are paying attention! And you know miss Joplin! Are you older than me?”
Deadpool reaches for the hidden seam where Peter’s mask meets the neck of his suit. Peter flinches harshly, knocking Deadpool’s hand away from him, accidentally hitting him hard enough to fracture his wrist. Whatever, he deserved it, Peter decides.
“Um, I don’t know,” Peter avoids the question, not wanting to reveal anything about himself. He tugs the bottom of his mask down, securing it in place more tightly, “My aunt liked her a lot.”
Shit, he shouldn’t have mentioned May. Plenty of people had aunts, though, right?
“Your aunt had taste,” Deadpool nods happily, undisturbed by the fracture or Peter’s reaction, “Janis is incredible! It’s too bad she died so young. Do you think we’d still regard her as a legend if she hadn’t overdosed? What about the rest of the 27 Club? I mean, they were all incredibly talented people, but how many legends do we ignore simply because they age?”
This was exhausting. Peter felt drained, unable to come to terms with the fact that all his hard work had diminished down to nothing due to the person sitting on top of him, telling him made-up stories involving song lyrics.
“Looks like we have some friends,” Deadpool said, suddenly serious, “We should go.”
Jumping from his spot on Peter’s chest, Deadpool yanks Spider-man back onto his feet. He draws a gun from a holster (seriously, how many guns did this guy carry?) and points it at the end of the hallway where a few security guards are rounding the corner.
Peter webs the gun out of Deadpool’s hand, “No killing.”
“Ugh!” Deadpool exclaims, “Seriously, Webs, stop doing that! I need my babies!”
Referring to guns as ‘babies’ was new to Peter. He scoffs, “No, you don’t!”
“Uh, yes, I do,” Deadpool says mockingly, “I also need to go grab Arthur out of the computer, so I’ll be right back.”
The guards at the end of the hallway shout something their way. Deadpool groans and throws his head back as he shouts, “Can’t you guys give us, like, one second?!”
A gunshot rings out again, this time not from Deadpool, triggering Peter’s instincts.
It feels like slow motion as he watches the bullet fly through the air towards him. This happened a lot more often than he liked to admit, but he was used to them at this point. What he wasn’t used to was having someone literally jump in front of a bullet for him.
When the bullet lands, it tears into the middle of Deadpool’s chest, directly where his heart is.
Peter’s vision tunnels again— next thing he knows, he’s webbing up all the guards and their weapons, and he’s carrying Deadpool over his shoulder as he desperately runs towards the emergency exit stairwell. He releases webs and propels both of them up the stairwell towards the roof, only thinking about the quickest escape route. If he can get Deadpool to a hospital quick enough, and if the bullet is in the right spot, he might survive. Maybe. If everything lines up nicely. So far nothing today has, but maybe this will.
He’s panicking. Deadpool can’t die on him, he wouldn’t let him, this is like Uncle Ben all over again. Everyone died around him, no matter how hard he tried to keep people safe.
“Deadpool!” Peter’s trying not to scream as he barrels through the doorway to the roof. He drops to his knees and gently lays Deadpool down on the snowy roof, “Say something!”
He just met the guy, and he may have ruined all of Peter’s plans for the day, but that didn’t mean he deserved to die, especially not because of a bullet that was meant for Spider-man.
Peter shakes his shoulders slightly, praying that the man is still conscious, despite how still he had been in Peter’s arms.
Desperation takes over Peter’s sensibilities, so he’s not thinking clearly as he rips open Deadpool’s suit a bit. He’s searching around the wounded area, trying to locate where the bullet entered his body, but he sees nothing besides pinkish skin that looks freshly healed. There’s fresh blood on the suit and around the pink skin but there is no bullet wound. Peter presses his fingers gently against the skin to make sure he isn’t hallucinating.
Nope, it’s real. And it’s healed. Healing? The wound is fluttering a bit. It looks like it’s twitching. Peter doesn’t know what to do, so he stares and watches.
“Wow, this wasn’t how I pictured my day ending up! Young, hot Spider-man, literally tearing my clothes off. I didn’t imagine we would be doing this in the snow, but I’m not complaining!”
Deadpool coughs up some blood but seems otherwise fine, if his words aren’t enough of an indication. Peter silently stares at him in shock.
When his brain kicks back into gear, he’s sputtering, “B-but, you got shot? How— how is this happening? You were dead— now you’re not? You survived a bullet to the chest, but now the bullet is gone? What—”
“Woah, slow down,” Deadpool lifts himself up onto his elbows and looks at Spider-man, “Yeah, that’s why I’m named Deadpool, baby boy. Can’t die.”
Peter flushes hard at the nickname, feeling a sense of euphoria crash over him. If he hadn’t been wearing his mask, he would have probably chalked it up to being overwhelmed by the fact that Deadpool was immortal and decided to flirt with death to protect Peter. But he’s a terrible liar, so he’s grateful that his face can’t be seen.
“Thanks for saving my ass,” Deadpool adjusts himself into a sitting position, wiping away some blood that had dribbled out of his mouth, “Usually I’m just left alone and wake up in my blood. Or my piss. Or my vomit. Or all three.”
“That’s… that’s horrible,” Peter says, and he genuinely means it. He couldn’t imagine dying, let alone coming back to life only to be laid out in your own fluids. How many times has Deadpool woken up alone?
The question seems invasive, so Peter refrains from asking, but it still makes him ache deep down. He stares down at his hands resting against his thighs, turning the question over and over in his mind. He’s still kneeling on the ground, the legs of his suit now wet with snow and blood splatters.
Deadpool stands nonchalantly, batting away snow that stuck to the back of his thighs, calves, and arms. His boots crunch the snow loudly as he makes his way towards the rooftop access door.
“Well, I gotta go pick up Arthur, since you decided to leave her behind,” Deadpool says over his shoulder, “You have a good day, Spider-man! I’ll see you soon!”
“Wait!” Peter shouts. He springs to his feet, almost losing his balance on the ice, “Why are you after me? I’m a good guy!”
“Oh,” Deadpool pauses with his hand on the handle, “I’m not after you. I was hired to protect you. We’re besties now!”
With that, Deadpool walks into the building and locks the door behind him, leaving Peter out in the snow.