Chapter Text
The fridge was empty.
Deadpool let out a gusty sigh, exhaling his starvation-induced irritation in one go. Didn't that kid ever learn to stop by the grocery store? Did he even eat? There was nothing but a jar of mayo and what looked like a mouldy sandwich, left forgotten on the shelf.
The mercenary glanced at the boy's file, which sat idly on the center aisle of the kitchen with random pages dog eared and askew. From the looks of it, the kid wasn't anything special. Just on the cusp of twenty-one, Peter Parker was a novice photographer for the Bugle and spent his days struggling to make ends meet while coping with the loss of his Aunt, his last remaining family member.
Wade would've cared more, if not for the fact that the white box snidely informed him of the Bugle's stance against Spider-man, his own personal hero.
Wade wasn't sure why Oscorp had hired him to kill the younger, but then again, he wasn't paid to ask questions.
Boredly, Wade ambled to look into a cupboards, only to find stairs leading downward. Curious, he lightly treaded the stairs, tensing with every creak, ever wary of Parker's impending arrival home. He was waiting to ambush the photographer, but found waiting to be a bore.
What he found astonished him.
In the musty basement of Peter Parker's home was a lab--cluttered beyond belief, yes, but still a lab. Various monitors lit up the claustrophobic space, casting shadows against strange little vials and cases upon cases of crawling, creeping, spiders.
There were webs everywhere--massive ones, forming odd tunnels and what even looked like a hammock. They dangled from the ceiling, reaching for something not quite there, and Wade was both surprised and horrified to find even more spiders there, occupying the most cramped of corners and watching him curiously with black, beady eyes.
Ugh, the boxes sang in unison.
There was a makeshift mannequin shoved almost hastily in the furthest corner, guarded by a rather menacing looking huntsman spider, bearing a rather familiar marking.
It didn't take very long for Wade to figure out who it was, exactly, he had been hired to assassinate. Horror twisted his gut when he realized just what he had almost done, and the feeling intensified when he heard the front door swing open.
"Spidey!" The yelp tumbled past his lips without his consent as he traipsed back up the stairs, joyful to hear the familiar yet anguished shriek of his still very much alive idol.
He could've gone without the web that was shot into his face, but yellow box said beggars couldn't be choosers.
"What are you doing in my house?" Spider-man--no, Peter gasped not too long later, clutching the corner of the countertop with one hand and his chest with the other. He had brought home chinese takeout; the cheap kind that smelled a little suspicious. A strange skittering sound was occasionally heard from within.
Wade admired him from where he had been shunned into a spare kitchen chair, tugging fitfully at the webs that kept him seated. Having never seen Spiderman without his mask; his eyes drank in the sight greedily as he tried to commit it to memory. Peter was a delight to look at, of course. Youthful, with handsome features, hair that curled off his forehead and around his ears, and having an almost feminine jilt to his hips.
Upon registering Peter's question, however, Wade seemed to wilt. "Oscorp."
Something flashed in Peter's eyes; something raw that made Wades heart ache for reasons unknown.
"Oh." A small, disappointed noise.
Wade felt like kicking himself. How was he supposed to romance his hero when he was too busy hurting him?
"I'm sorry," deadpool blurts, voice straining. "If i'd had known, I wouldn't have taken the job, I swear!" Hastily, he adds, "I won't tell a soul, I swear to, to....uh, Micchanohay?"
Peter eyes him warily, reminding Wade oddly of the spiders in the basement-- all dark eyes and frozen limbs. There's a hint of a smile pulling at his mouth, however. Wade could've basked in triumph for decades. "Tell anyone, and I will personally flood your pants with spiders--the bad kind."
Wade could deal with that; he nodded enthusiastically, feeling the webs sticking to his arms loosening.
Peter glances about, looking satisfied, before brown eyes landed on the paper bag on the counter beside him. He seemed to pause for a moment, dark eyes under even darker lashes flitting up and over to Wade almost shyly.
The look stilled his subtle attempt at breaking free, setting his veins on fire.
He offers to share his takeout, and Wade couldn't agree fast enough. By now he had expected a brutal ass-kicking, or at least to be shoved out the front door. Maybe some scoldings, too.
It seemed that Peter was just a little different than Spider-man himself.
...Or at least, that's what Wade had thought.
The mercenary's eyes glance between Peter and his meal in disbelief, the other having moved to sit on the counter with ease as he gracefully opened a box and took out a live, wriggling beetle.
"You're not going to eat that, are you?" Wade asks weakly, feeling just a little bit nauseated. He hid behind his share of fried rice when Peter gives him a startled look.
The younger looks at the wriggling bug as if he hadn't even realized what it was, brow furrowing unhappily. "Well, I mean...yeah?"
Wade watches in gross fascination as Peter bites the beetles' head clean off before shucking it into the sink and drinking the creatures innards, as if he did it on a daily basis.
He better brush his teeth before he kisses us, white box says with a gag.
If he kisses us, yellow box corrects, sounding ill.
Wade refused to be deterred. "Okay, that's...yeah, that's cool, that's fine. Totally fine with me." He nods reassuringly at the other's inquisitive look.
Peter looks delighted, and as Wade basked in his glow and tried to sidle closer without being noticed he wondered how he could ever even think to be weirded out by him.
"So, uh, you really like those, huh?" Wade asks, feeling like a fumbling teenager all over again under the youngers curious gaze.
Peter finishes his thirteenth beetle, looking pleased. "Uh-huh, the lady who owns the chinese place I always eat at gives them to me." He lickes his thumb free of any remaining innards, and Wade is enraptured by the swipe of his little pink tongue. "So, uh, by Oscorp, do you mean...?"
"Lil' fuckwad named after Harry Potter? Yeah." Wade slumps a little.
There was something mournful in Peter's amused laugh. "Yeah, I thought so. Didn't think he could get into trouble from prison, but...I guess I should've known."
“You knew him?”
Peter’s eyes softened. “We used to be friends.”
“Oh,” Wade fidgeted with his plastic fork, wishing he hadn’t asked. The mood was ruined. “So...what are you working on in your lab thing?”
Smooth.
Spidey shoots him an amused yet exasperated look. “You found that too, huh?”
“...Maybe?”
Peter laughs and offers to show him. Wade can’t say yes fast enough, and soon they’re both trotting down into the basement, ignoring the creaking steps and stale air.
“Contrary to popular belief,” Peter begins, gently moving a particularly grumpy spider from his computer chair, “I didn’t always have these powers.”
Wade plonks himself down on the countertop, cross-legged with his face in his hands, eager to listen. The truth of Spider-man. The world would pay its weight in gold for this information, and yet here he was getting it for free.
Peter slides open a drawer and pulls out a glass case. “This is a radioactive spider. It’s dead,” he quickly assured, gently setting it on the countertop for Wade to see, “don’t worry. It was specially made by Oscorp. I was bitten by one on accident, and it’s venom gave me it’s power.”
“Wouldn’t that kill you?” Wade inquires, eyeing the little spider corpse. It was small, but had unnaturally vibrant colours. Definitely poisonous.
“It was a project to make genetically modified soldiers.” Peter stares at it too, eyes cloudy in thought. “When my dad found out, he sealed the venom so that it could only modify his genes. When Oscorp found out they took him out.” He sighs, leaning back. “I found it completely by accident.”
“Holy shit,” Wade croaks weakly. “Talk about coincidences.”
Peter gives a inelegant snort. “No kidding.”
Wade watches him sigh, shoulders slumping. "I've been experimenting with the venom, trying to make a cure for it. So far, nothing has worked. My DNA has been altered for good."
"Why would you want to?" Deadpool blurts incredulously. "You can climb walls and swing from buildings, why would you want to give that up?!"
Peter smiles weakly at him. "It comes with consequences, Wade."
He puts his fingers together. When they pull apart they're connected by long strings of webbing that came from under his nails.
"The venom is still mutating my genes." He idly makes a web out of the strands, waiting patiently for it to dry before releasing it from his fingers and setting it down on the table. Once hardened, it looked like spun glass.
Wade prods at it in interest, surprised to find it more durable than he expected.
"It's stronger than bone," Peter explains patiently. "It's full of pores that move pressure evenly throughout the structure, so it lasts longer under stress."
"Sounds like a good thing to me," Wade hums, bending it in his hands. It was almost elastic. "Could make some nice weapons out of this."
"It's not so nice when you wake up on the ceiling surrounded by it."
Wade looks up in surprise, finding a tired face staring back at him. "It's a bit like...backwards evolution? Regression."
Wade looks at the web, then back to Peter. "This venom...it can really fuck you up, huh?"
If Peter's webs were being changed, what else was? He could mutate into a spider himself for all he knew. Or, the radioactive venom could be slowly killing Peter at that very moment. Anything could happen.
Which could explain why Peter suddenly looked so scared and worn thin.
"You see my dilemma, then?"
Wade gave it some thought. He wasn't a science kind of guy--he would be of no use to Peter. He specialized in killing people, not keeping them alive.
There were, however, other heroes in the world.
"The Hulk!"
Peter gave him a befuddled look. "Dr. Banner? You know he's not a medical doctor, right?"
Wade pouts. "He works with radiation, doesn't he?"
"Gamma rays, Wade. It's not the same thing."
"Yeah, but he's smart. And he works with Ironman, who has ten PhDs! They can figure something out between the two of them, right?"
"They work with SHIELD." Peter protests.
"That's where I come in, baby boy! I'll keep them off you're back for you. No problem."
Peter is quiet, and Wade realizes there's something he's not telling him. "...what? What's wrong?"
"...I don't trust them." Simply put; Wade didn't blame him. That wasn't all, though. He could tell.
Wade lets him get away with it, though.
"It's your only hope." He sidles closer. He doesn't want Peter to be in pain. He also doesn't want SHIELD to force him into anything like they usually did.
"I know," he doesn't sound happy about it. His eyes are begging when he asks, quietly, "Will you help me?"
Wade's heart feels like it's going to fall out from how fast it plummeted. Peter was terrified. Not only that, but completely alone. Wade remembers the file upstairs. Peter had no one else but him.
"Of course," he croaks instead, giving the other two thumbs up. "Anything you need, sweet cheeks!"
Peter's relieved smile makes him want to weep.