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“What is the capital of Azerbaijan?”
There was a pause on the line. Peter flipped mid-air, shot out a web to catch him.
“Baku,” Harley said.
“Correct,” MJ replied, and through the call, Peter could hear the sound of her textbook pages flipping. Below him, New York spread out in perfect square city blocks; a hundred thousand little lights, little people, moving on in the golden glow of night.
Peter could hear MJ’s hum, before, “What is the atomic number for lithium?”
Harley groaned in annoyance. Peter thought three but didn’t say a thing. He caught himself on the side of a building, tilting his head at the figure standing on the opposite rooftop. They had a familiar silhouette, like someone he knew.
“Three,” Ned decided.
“Ding ding ding.”
Peter smiled to himself, then leaped across to the opposite roof. He landed lightly on the wall behind the figure, cast in shadow, and stepped down, recognising the weapons, hidden in the darkness.
Peter tip-toed across the roof, getting an angle that caught sight of the laundromat opposite, where the figure was staring.
“Nice night, huh?” he asked, making the figure jump.
“Jesus Mary fuck!” Deadpool said, spinning, a gun already pointed at Peter’s head. Peter raised his hands in surrender.
“Just me,” Peter replied.
“Christ alive, Spidey, are you trying to give me a heart attack?”
Peter shrugged, stepping closer, as Deadpool lowered his gun, sticking it back in its holster. In one ear, Ned asked, “Who’s Peter talking to?”
“I dunno, listen and find out,” Harley replied.
“Not trying,” Peter said, moving over to the ledge Deadpool was standing against. “Might be an unfortunate side effect. What are you doing up here?”
Deadpool nodded his mask-clad head towards the laundromat opposite. “Ran out of salsa. Figured anything chunky and red would substitute.”
“Dude. Gross.”
“Hardcore,” Ned whispered in his ear.
Peter had a feeling that Deadpool was smiling when he looked back down at the street. “It’s a little to gory for your kind of action, baby boy. Run along now and don’t get your leotard stained.”
Peter blinked at him and ignored the comment. “Who are the targets?”
“Is Peter about to murk some people?” Harley asked.
“Sounds like it,” MJ replied. “Do we call the police on Peter? Or, like, is Spiderman allowed to kill people.”
Deadpool cocked his head to the side. “Armenian gun traffickers. Shot up a bodega last week and now I have to walk three blocks to get breakfast.”
“Heart breaking.”
“Truly. So, are you gonna go or are you here for the show?”
Peter knew the kind of thing Deadpool got up to. He was a mercenary, for one thing, and they knew each other vaguely, in the way that meant they’d helped each other out before. Deadpool had seen Peter go flying into a river and pulled him out long before an Iron Man suit had been able to arrive, and Peter had saved one of DP’s friends from being tortured to a painful death while Deadpool saved his girlfriend from the same fate.
They could work together as a team alright, but Peter wasn’t interested in the mercenary’s line of work. He was interested in saving people.
“Iron Man kills people,” Ned said. “He never gets in trouble. Maybe Spiderman has the Iron Man Killing Approval.”
“Peter’s got an Instant Kill Mode on the suit Tony made,” Harley replied. “That sounds like approval to me.”
“I’ll stay out here,” Peter decided. “Civilian duty. Webbing up people who escape. That kind of thing.”
Deadpool paused then nodded once. “Suit yourself, little butterfly.” He made a butterfly symbol with his hands, fluttering away. On the street, a black van pulled up. “If you could slash those tyres while you’re at it. Getaway vehicles are a drag.”
Deadpool jumped up onto the ledge, slinging a semi-automatic around to his front.
“Yell if you’re dying and need help,” Peter said, mild.
“You got it, Princess.”
Deadpool jumped off the ledge, and Peter moved onto it in wait. Down below, the gunfire started and the few people on the street ran the other way.
“Who was that dude?” MJ asked.
“Deadpool,” Peter replied. “Nice enough guy. Bit violent.”
Harley snorted. “Don’t die, Parker.”
“I’ll try not to, Keener.”
Peter muted the group call, waited for the moment Deadpool bust through the front of the laundromat, and then leapt off the roof.
*
Deadpool knocked on Peter’s front door for him, considering Peter was stuck in a bridal carry in Deadpool’s arms.
“I’m gonna freak out in a minute,” Peter informed the mercenary. “May’s gonna freak out, and when May freaks out, I’m gonna freak out. So, fair warning.”
“Understood.”
It took a moment before the door opened as far as the chain pulling taught. “Oh, my God.”
“Hey, May,” Peter greeted, rolling his head to see her.
The door shut and a moment later, flung wide open, May moving to the side to usher Deadpool into the apartment.
“What the hell happened?”
“Minor injuries, really,” Deadpool said, light, carrying Peter over to the sofa. “Some burning, cuts, maybe a bullet wound? Not sure, didn’t check. Hey, kid, you get shot?”
Peter shrugged.
Deadpool shrugged.
The door slammed shut.
“Start talking right now,” May ordered, moving to Peter’s side and studying the torn suit. His legs were burned, hence why he was being carried, and the suit was singed around the edges where the fire had flickered through it. The suit wasn’t fire proof, who knew? On his torso, there were a few slow-healing slices from the big knives the Armenian guys thought it fun to attack him with. Peter hadn’t felt being shot, but there was a chance. A lot of bullets flying around in there.
“Me?” Peter asked.
“I don’t care, either one of you.” She winced at the sight of the burns and immediately moved to the kitchen for the first aid kit.
“DP had a thing he wanted to do,” Peter said. “And I was like, I’ll be on look out. Save people, you know?”
“He did very good,” Deadpool agreed. “Didn’t kill anyone, didn’t die, saved some civilians—”
“Saved your life too,” Peter pointed out.
Deadpool waved a vague hand. “Sure, that too. But there were just more guys than we accounted for. Nothing we couldn’t handle, though.”
“Nothing you couldn’t handle?” May asked, the first aid kit hitting the coffee table with a slam. “Take a look at his legs, asshole. Take a look.”
“May, it’s fine.”
“It’s not fine, Peter. You’re burned. You couldn’t walk here so you had a criminal mercenary bring you instead.” Peter knew this tone and this look and these jerky motions – May was working herself up into her anger.
“May—”
“The point of wearing a mask is so people don’t know who you are! And you just brought someone here! You brought him of all people, here! And I just said your name – oh, my God.” May pressed her fingertips hard into her temples. “This is a disaster night. Spiderman saves people - he doesn’t get into weird mercenary business—"
“Technically, I’m an X-Man-in-training now,” Deadpool interrupted, then immediately quietened when May shot him a glare.
“And you.”
“I’m gonna duck out.”
“Oh hell no, you’re not. You do not bring Spiderman into any of your dangerous bloodbath missions, do you understand me?”
They stared at each other. May ground out, “Do you understand me.”
“I understand.”
She released a long breath. “Did either of you tell Tony about this?”
Peter shook his head.
“Alright. Let’s – we’ll tell him you ruined the suit tomorrow. I can cover and treat the burns. And if you—" she turned on Deadpool once more “-ever tell anyone about me or about this place—"
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Deadpool promised.
May glared at him. Deadpool tilted his head, just slightly.
He stuck out a hand for her to shake. “Wade Wilson.”
He’d evened out the playing field. May shook his head. “May Parker.”
*
Peter didn’t go into school the next day because his legs were still sore and healing. Rather, he lounged around on the sofa for a while, completed some school work and tried to wade through the texts and missed calls from the night before. Peter had muted the call and never unmuted it. His friends had sat up, waiting for him to come back from a dangerous situation, and he’d forgotten to tell them he was okay.
Eventually, Harley, still on the phone to Ned and MJ, had gone down to the lab at one in the morning and accessed Karen manually to find out if Peter was still breathing. There was a particularly aggravated voicemail from Harley that Peter had replied to with the word “sorry” copy and pasted a hundred-and-twenty-one times into a text.
After school ended, the front door to the apartment swung open.
“Parker,” Harley announced loudly, walking in as if he owned the place.
Peter propped himself up on the sofa and grimaced. The doors slammed shut. “Keener.”
Harley moved around the sofa and tore the blanket off his body, narrowing his eyes at the bandages still wrapped around his calves. When he was satisfied that Peter still had all his limbs, he threw the blanket back.
“Glad to see you’re not dead,” he said, nudging Peter to shift and then collapsing at the end of the sofa.
“Sorry,” Peter said, one-hundred-and-twenty-two.
“Yeah, I got that.” Harley shook his head. “Tony’s pissed, you know.”
Peter groaned and tipped his head back against the arm of the sofa. “I went to a medical professional.”
“Not about that. The Deadpool thing.”
“How does he know about DP?”
“Baby Monitor, Parker. Keep up.” Harley rolled his eyes. “Dude’s like all kinds of scary dangerous. Every time you hang out with him you come back with some massive injury.”
“Not massive,” Peter mumbled, and Harley threw a pillow at him.
“Listen, Deadpool operates outside the law – like super outside the law. You’re Spiderman. You—"
“I know. But I was just there for back up and to keep people safe. It’s not like I was the one that cut a dude in half.”
Harley blinked. “He cut a dude in half?”
They stared at each other for a moment, then Peter asked, “You wanna play a game? I’ve still got that old Call of Duty disc.”
They played Call of Duty, which Peter was thankful for. He didn’t need the fourth degree – he’d already gotten the third from May the night before, and the second made its marks on his legs.
His mind was on the problem at hand: Deadpool, danger, Mr Stark and the broken Spiderman suit that Happy had swung by to pick up that morning. It was also on Wade Wilson – because that was Deadpool’s name – and all Karen could find on the guy (during their lunchtime sleuthing session) was a soldier in some elite group who’d eventually left. That Wade Wilson had featured in a single group photo, but Peter couldn’t tell if Deadpool’s voice would sound right coming from his mouth.
Eventually, May returned home and didn’t even blink at the sight of Harley on the sofa, quick scoping Peter and once again winning the round.
“Head shot.”
Peter rolled his eyes. “I have no hand-eye coordination.”
“You’re Spiderman. Hand-eye coordination is your super power. Hey, May,” Harley added, glancing over his shoulder.
“Afternoon, Harley. How did you fare in school without your partner in crime?”
Peter watched Harley’s lips twitch up into a smile. Harley and May had hit it off right away; Harley was another nerdy teenage boy, like the other two she knew, only a little smart-alecky, and May was the same kind of hard-working mother-figure Harley had known his whole life. Harley slipped into place with the Parkers without any bumps at all.
“Pretty good. Ned came to school with the single-minded focus of talking about a specific episode of the original Star Trek series, and because MJ and I have zero interest in that, we were spared from a six-hour conversation about it.”
“Oh my God, he must’ve finally made it to the season one finale,” Peter said, sitting up. “I really wanted to ask him about what he thought when-”
“My point exactly,” Harley interrupted. “God spared me from this conversation.”
May laughed somewhere in the kitchen as Peter frowned and started up a new round on the TV.
Harley stayed for dinner, and the three of them made it in the kitchen, not big enough for all of them, but not minding. Harley made sure May didn’t burn anything and Peter set the table, and the three of them let Deadpool and the burns on Peter’s legs slip from their minds entirely.
*
Two weeks later, Peter swung over Queens, Ned and Harley rattling in his ear about their speculations on the Winter Soldier and his whereabouts.
“I bet he went off on his own,” Ned said. “He was a lone wolf before, he’ll be a lone wolf again.”
“Doubt it,” Peter replied. He landed on a rooftop above a Chinese takeaway. The figure sitting there looked up when he arrived. “If I were Captain America and I’d just fought for his safety, I’d keep the guy by my side, you know? He and Falcon seemed to get along in Germany.”
Deadpool was seated on the edge of the roof, his legs swinging over the edge. He didn’t say a word as Peter walked over.
“You know what I think?” Harley asked. “Hydra had him in cryo for like seventy years – it was in all those reports that were leaked to the net. I’d bet he’s back in cryo.”
“Really?” Ned asked.
“Yeah. He’s probably safer like that until he’s less – I don’t know – Winter Soldiery.”
“Interesting,” Peter mused, sitting by Deadpool’s side. “Oh, there’s crime. I’m gonna mute you guys.”
“Don’t forget to unmute this time,” Harley replied, and then he and Ned were a silent notification in the corner of his display.
Peter looked over to Deadpool. “Wade Wilson,” he greeted.
“Peter Parker. Ooh – I like the alliteration thing we’ve got going on right now.” Peter snorted as Deadpool grabbed the bag of take out from his other side and offered it. “Wait until you meet Daredevil. We could be a whole alliteration gang.”
Peter took one of the offered chimichangas, rolling his mask up to his nose to eat it. Out of the corner of his eye, he watched Wade do the same – only the skin beneath the mask seemed puckered, like it had once been burned.
Peter kept his eyes steadfast on the Chinese restaurant opposite. They ate in silence, until Peter screwed up the rubbish and placed it in the takeout bag.
“What are you doing tonight?” Peter asked.
“Are you asking me out?”
“I’m a minor.”
“So, no, you’re not,” Wade replied. “I’m waiting on the owner of that place arriving, so I can politely ask him where the bodies of all the girls he’s murdered are hidden.”
Peter blinked at the Chinese restaurant. It seemed so classy. Not at all like the owner was a murderer. “Politely?”
Wade shrugged. “Or not. Depends how he’s feeling.” They were quiet for a moment. “You’re not helping me, Parker.”
“I didn’t say I was going to.”
“No, but you’re still here.”
“Maybe I like the company.”
Wade snorted. “Okay. Because I’m such great company.”
“Are you gonna go in there while it’s still open?”
It was a little past ten PM. The restaurant wouldn’t close until eleven. Wade shrugged.
“If you do, I’m gonna have to go in there too.”
Wade nodded once. Peter would protect the innocents. He would also, likely, save Wade’s ass from anyone in there who was carrying. They didn’t say that out loud though, because that meant acknowledging that Peter was doing the thing that May Parker had explicitly banned him from doing: helping Deadpool. (Mr Stark, too, had given Peter more than a few choice words about the mercenary, before sighing and saying, “Even if you’re with him, you call me if you need help.”)
They rolled their masks back down and following a sleek black BMW pulling up to the restaurant, they slipped off the roof and into action.
*
This time, Peter got hurt because a civilian was about to get shot, and he would prefer taking the bullet than letting the innocent do it. So, he took the bullet in the shoulder, and watched the guy who shot him take one in the head from Wade.
They kept fighting because there was still fighting to be done. After, Peter waited in the main down the block with his bleeding shoulder for Wade to finish up with whatever he was doing to that man. Probably killing him. Peter didn’t want to think about it. There was a chance that Wade wasn’t killing him, though it was small.
Wade wasn’t covered with blood when he strolled down the street, ready to help Peter home, as he couldn’t swing with a bullet in his shoulder.
“To your Aunt’s?” Wade asked.
Peter shook his head. “She’s at work. Night shift. The Tower would be better.”
“Like, Stark Tower?”
Peter nodded, and Wade sighed something sorrowful. Then, he pulled out a flip phone with a tiny, Hello Kitty phone accessory dangling from the side, and called a cab. Wade seemed familiar with the driver, and the two of them chatted as Wade held a firm hand to Peter’s shoulder, stemming the bleeding and making Peter swear every time he changed the pressure.
“Children shouldn’t swear,” he said.
“Children shouldn’t be swinging around in spandex either, but I’m doing that.”
At the Tower, Wade didn’t pay the cab driver and told him to wait out front. Peter tilted his head back to stare all the way up at the top of the building, stretching high up into the night.
“I assume we’re not taking the front door.”
“You’d assume correct. Go round the back.”
The made their way into the private car park, and then into the private elevator that Mr Stark used. Wade whistled at the fancy cars, lined up one after another.
“You can just walk in here whenever?” Wade asked.
“I can. You on the other hand.” Peter groaned over his shoulder and pushed into the elevator. “Penthouse, FRI.”
“There is an unknown person in the elevator with you,” FRIDAY said from on high. Wade jumped.
“What the fuck? You heard that, right?”
Peter nodded. “It’s okay, FRI. He’s cool. Is Mr Stark up there?”
There was a pause before the elevator doors slid shut, as if FRIDAY had decided to trust Peter’s judgement. “Mr Stark and Miss Potts are currently in L.A. at a conference.”
Peter’s hopes dwindled and died in his stomach. That was his go-to medical attention. He looked at Wade. “You know how to pull a bullet out?”
Wade scoffed. “Who do you think I am, kid?”
“Take us to the medbay, instead,” Peter said. “Is – uh, is Harley in?”
“Harley is in his bedroom, though he appears to be awake,” FRIDAY replied.
Peter toyed with the idea of not telling Harley about him being there, shot and bloodied and with a mercenary. He twisted his neck one way and then the other. Pain throbbed in his shoulder, he was starting to get light-headed from the blood loss, and soon the wound would close up without the bullet being removed.
Peter sighed. “Can you tell him I’m here? And – you know. Uh, the injury?”
“Of course, Spiderman.”
When the elevator doors opened, Wade hauled Peter into the empty medbay. Stark Tower was used largely for Stark Industries business now that the Avengers Facility existed, though this floor was mostly empty and spared for accidents occurring in the R&D labs. In the day time, there would usually be a nurse on call, and sometimes a few scientists or engineers meandering around, trying to test their creations for medical use.
Now, the medbay was empty. The overhead fluorescents flickered on, one after another as they trudged through the room, blood dripping against the clean white floors. Peter could hear the faint buzz of electrics, smell the strength of the antiseptic.
Wade dumped him on a bed. “You’ll need to take that suit off,” he said. “Can’t work with it in the way.”
Peter huffed, using his good arm to tap the spider on his chest. The suit went lax around his body and Wade helped pull his bad arm out of the sleeve to work on, pain splicing back through his shoulder. Peter yanked the mask off at the same time, then caught Wade staring.
“What?”
“You really are a baby boy, huh?”
Peter rolled his eyes. “I’m sixteen. I’m not a baby.”
Wade mock gasped. “You’re so close to being a dancing queen.”
“Get this bullet out of me already,” he grumbled, resting back on the hospital bed. Wade puttered around the medbay, going through drawers and cupboards until he found what he needed. He pushed a trolley to the side of the bed to lay everything out, and then stared at his gloves for a moment before pulling them off. He replaced them with the plastic disposable ones, the dirty, blood-splattered DP gloves ditched on the floor.
“Dancing queen, young and sweet, only seventeen,” Wade sang under his breath, before sticking something cold and metal into the wound to stretch it back out. It was as Peter shrieked with the sudden pain that the door opened and Harley stood there, swamped in one of Tony’s old MIT hoodies and Hulk pyjama pants.
“What the fuck.”
He rushed to Peter’s side, opposite Deadpool, eyes wide. When he grabbed onto Peter’s good arm, Peter could feel Harley shaking.
“Shit, dude,” Peter hissed at Wade, before looking back to Harley. “I’m good. I’m alright.”
“There’s a hole in your shoulder.”
“It won’t be there for long,” Peter promised. “I just need you to keep it together.” He winced as Wade pulled out something colder and metal and started digging around in his body for the bullet.
“What the hell happened? Don’t you think that’s a lot of blood to lose? Are you gonna be okay-”
“I’m fine,” Peter insisted. Harley’s hands were still on his arm. “I’m okay. Just let DP do his thing and I’ll be even better.”
“What’s he doing?” Harley asked, stretching over Peter to look.
“Digging out a bullet,” Wade replied, cheery. “You know, if it’s not too small, it could make a cute necklace.”
Peter shot him a stink eye and caught the clench of Harley’s jaw. Peter remembered, vividly, the bank robbery and Harley’s quick-but-firm hug after Peter had fought off the robbers. He remembered the way his eyes had darted across Peter’s body, checking for injuries, and the edge to his voice of fear. Then, again, when Harley was present for a Spiderman fight and watched Peter get knocked out.
And only a few weeks before – Peter not calling back after disappearing to fight in the laundromat.
It all added up to the same thing: Harley cared about Peter’s wellbeing and was currently scared shitless.
Peter hissed, swinging his good arm around until he caught Harley’s hand in his own, squeezing it with regular strength – not the super human kind – until Wade produced the bullet from the wound.
“Pretty little thing, huh?” Wade cooed. “Would’ve killed that woman. Good job, Spidey.”
Peter nodded. The bullet clinked against the metal of the trolley.
“I don’t know how much blood you lost,” Wade continued, “so, like, drink some orange juice.”
“Are you gonna stitch him up?” Harley asked, staring at the bloody mess on Peter’s shoulder.
“Unless you were planning on doing it,” Wade replied. He turned to find the needle and thread, and when he turned back, tilted his head. “You wanna?”
Harley’s eyes widened. “I wanna what?”
“Stitch him up.”
“I’ve never done that before.”
“Stitch virgin,” Wade said with a nod. “That’s chill. We’re all stitch virgins at some point.”
“Won’t it – won’t it scar badly if I do it wrong?”
Wade shrugged. “I was gonna make it bad anyway so it would scar,” he replied.
“Hey,” Peter complained.
“What’s the point of getting shot if you don’t get a cool scar?”
He had a point. Peter looked at Harley and Harley looked at Peter. He seemed a little less nervous all of a sudden; his hand wasn’t shaking so much under Peter’s palm.
“You can say no,” Peter said.
“So can you,” Harley replied.
Peter shrugged.
Harley shrugged.
Wade held out the needle.
Deadpool, the “merc with a mouth”, was a decent enough teacher. He gave Harley the plastic gloves, cleaned the wound so they could see what Harley was doing, and gave him clear instructions on how to sew up Peter’s shoulder.
Peter didn’t try to watch Harley’s hands as he worked, rather, he watched Harley’s face; the way he stared resolutely at Peter’s shoulder, the way he bit down hard on his lower lip when he was focused.
Peter realised, about half way through, why he looked so much calmer. Why he was so much calmer.
When Harley had walked in the room, he hadn’t had any control over the situation; just Peter bleeding in a bed. Now, he had some control. He could help. Maybe that was what Harley needed.
Peter filed that information away in his head, and eventually rested his eyes shut, head tipped back, until Harley was finished with the stitches – a little messy, but a good enough first attempt – and a patch had been stuck over the injured skin. The blood on Peter’s skin was cleaned up, as was that on the trolley and the floor.
Harley climbed onto the bed by Peter’s feet, shaking his head all the while as Deadpool wandered about the medbay, trying to make it seem like he had never been there.
“You’re not wearing your mask,” Harley whispered.
“He already knows my name.”
“Do you know his?” Peter nodded, and Harley raised his eyebrows like well? Peter shook his head. “You didn’t unmute the call again.”
Peter sighed. “Shit. I meant to. But I got shot, and-”
“I know,” Harley interrupted. “It’s okay. I texted Ned when you got here. I, uh – it was better that you came here instead of home.”
“I’m gonna make a protocol for Karen,” Peter decided. “Or, I’ll get Mr Stark to help me make a protocol for her. To tell you guys I’m fine when I don’t call back.”
Harley nodded, and overhead FRIDAY announced, “Incoming call from Mr Stark.”
A second later, Mr Stark’s voice said, “Peter? Harley? You two okay?”
“Yeah,” Harley called back, FRIDAY the phone in this situation. “We’re good.” He raised his eyebrows at Peter. We’re good, right?
Peter nodded. We’re good.
“FRIDAY told me that Deadpool is in Stark Tower right now.”
Across the medbay, Wade froze by a cupboard and slowly span to look at the boys on the bed.
Peter shrugged with his good arm. “Uh.”
“Uh?” Mr Stark sighed. “Is Deadpool in the building right now?”
“You know,” Peter said, in his best conversational voice, “I’m surprised FRIDAY told you about DP instead of telling you that I got shot.”
“You got what?”
“Right?” Harley agreed. “Surely, that should be the kind of information she’s supposed to pass on automatically.”
“FRI, make a note to change your code with that,” Peter said.
“Note made,” FRIDAY replied.
“You got shot?”
Peter hummed.
Harley winced.
Wade saluted.
“Time for me to duck out,” he said.
Peter smiled. “Thanks for your help. Seriously. I’d owe you one, but-”
“You don’t want to be owing me anything,” Wade agreed. “That crying lady’s alive and so am I, so, we’re even.” He shrugged with both shoulders. “I’ll see you around, Spidey. Spidey’s friend.”
“FRIDAY, would you mind showing Deadpool out?”
The elevator door opened. The moment it shut, Tony Stark announced he was coming home early from his trip.
*
It was May who arrived first, out of all the responsible adults in Peter’s life.
She found the boys tangled up in Harley’s bed, four empty cartons of orange juice on the floor, the Spiderman suit draped over a chair. From what she could see, as she gently pulled Peter to the side, there was a semi-decent stitch job over the bullet wound.
It needed to be redressed, but as she looked at the boys, the television in Harley’s room still flashing images on mute, the duvet caught between their legs and arms and gangly limbs, she smiled, and decided it could wait until morning.