Chapter Text
Gotta pick up milk, Peter thinks as he swings through the city, and I think I’m out of eggs? I should probably get eggs. He winces at the strain in his shoulder as he takes a turn around a building just a hair too sharply. It’s his eighth consecutive night web-slinging, and he can feel the toll it’s taking on his body. He kills his web and breaks into a run across the reflective windows of a skyscraper, giving his arms a break. It doesn’t last long, only a few yards, before he’s leaping off the corner and shooting another web out. As he propels through the chilly night air, he groans. Can I even afford eggs?
That’s his last coherent thought before he’s suddenly bogged down with two hundred extra pounds and hurtling toward the ground fast. Dimly, he’s aware of the extra weight coming from the literal body that has fallen into his arms. If not for the quick reflexes his spidey senses grant him, he’s pretty sure they’d both be puddles on the pavement by now. As it is, Peter scrambles to keep hold of the mostly-limp body weighing him down while simultaneously shooting off another web so they don’t, y’know, die.
He barely manages—while they don’t crash into the ground, they do crash into a brick wall. Peter takes the brunt of the collision to protect his surprise carry-on, and then they just hang for a bit. They twist slowly as Peter tries to catch his breath. If the ache in his shoulder was bad before, it’s nothing compared to the burn now. Even so, he doesn’t move, mostly because he’s not sure what to do once he’s on solid ground. He can’t get a good look at his passenger with them being limp in his arms, but he’d be blind not to notice the spandex suit the other man is wearing, or the katanas strapped to his back.
“The falls don’t usually last this long. Did I fall into another wormhole?”
Peter blinks. “Uh, no?”
The body in his arms finally starts to shift, albeit only enough to glance up at Peter. Big white eyes meet his gaze; in fact, the whole mask—because that’s what it is, remarkably similar to Peter’s own mask as Spider-Man and yet totally different—is eerily expressive. The face lights up, somehow, despite not having a mouth. “You’re Spider-Man!”
“Yep.” Peter slowly starts to lower them to the ground. He doesn’t know who is in his arms right now, but the fact they aren’t immediately trying to kill him feels like a good sign. Plus, his arm fucking hurts, and he’d really like to regain feeling in his fingertips which he can’t do when he’s got a web stuck to the roof above them. “I, uh. I caught you, I guess?”
The other man doesn’t answer until there’s pavement under their feet. He stands up straight but doesn’t go far. “Yeah, sorry, rough night, you know?”
Peter nods along thoughtlessly as he breaks his web and starts to rub his shoulder as if he can will the ache away. It takes a lot to strain his muscles given his superhealing; he hasn’t felt sore like this since before the bite. It takes a moment for the pain to subside enough that the pieces start to come together. “Wait, did you jump?”
The man, who Peter now realizes is all decked out in red with accents of black, laughs. “Well yeah! What else is a guy supposed to do?”
Peter gapes at the stranger. “We need to get you to a hospital! There are people that can help you!” Peter looks the man over but doesn’t really know what he’s looking for. Wounds, maybe? Some sort of outward indication that this guy is suicidal enough to leap off a building in fucking New York, where the only conclusion is death? Peter’s breathing comes sharp and uneasy and he doesn’t realize his vision is spotty until a hand clamps down on his shoulder.
Rather than worsening the pain, the warmth bleeds through Peter’s suit and he lets out a shaky sigh.
“You don’t know who I am, do you?” The man seems like he’s smirking, even though all Peter can see is a mask.
“Should I?”
He sucks in a breath like he’s been wounded. “That hurts, Spidey. Cuts me deep.” Then he seems to shrug it off. “The name’s Pool. Deadpool.”
Peter can only blink.
Another sigh. “You’ve got your spidery bullshit, I’ve got my bullshit.”
“Bullshit that means a jump off a skyscraper won’t kill you?”
“Yup.” Deadpool doesn’t elaborate any further, and Peter’s previous panic melts away into anger.
Maybe it’s the exhaustion from eight days straight of patrolling, or the hunger that’s been gnawing at him since yesterday morning when his fridge finally emptied out, or maybe it’s the stress of literally catching a suicidal person who clearly has no regard for people around him. Peter isn’t sure which straw breaks his proverbial camel’s back, but the back breaks all the same. He snaps.
He slaps Deadpool hard on the arm and takes no small pleasure when the other man yelps in pain. “Explain!” Peter shouts as he keeps slapping. Sure, he could throw some punches, but the slapping feels better. More cathartic. Deadpool winces under the onslaught and tries to back away but Peter just follows diligently.
“I can regenerate!” Deadpool finally shouts, his voice echoing down the alleyway.
“You can’t regenerate if you’re dead.” Peter hasn’t stopped slapping, doesn’t know if he can stop, although he’s definitely losing steam. He’s so hungry, and tired, and he really doesn’t want to go to work tomorrow.
He’s brought out of his misery by warm, strong hands clamping tight around his wrists. “I can,” Deadpool says. “I can come back from anything.”
Peter glares, though he knows his mask isn’t as expressive as Deadpool’s.
“Scout’s honor. I’ve been decapitated, impaled, drowned, burned alive. If Stephen King or James Wan can dream it up, I’ve come back from it.” Deadpool’s voice isn’t quite so jovial now, and Peter’s stomach churns uncomfortably. “When times get rough, it’s kind of nice to just take a little bit of a dirt nap before the whole mutant thing kicks in.”
Peter frowns. “That doesn’t seem healthy.”
“Who needs health when you’re immortal?” Deadpool doesn’t wait for Peter to answer. And instead of dropping his wrists, he takes Peter by the hands instead. He holds them close, staring at their interlocked fingers almost reverently. It should be weirder, Peter thinks, but of all the things to happen, some random mutant holding hands with him is actually a nice change of pace. Less bloodshed, at least. “You look dead on your feet, kid.”
Peter can feel his lower lip wobble beneath his mask. “I was heading home when I caught you.” He doesn’t bother explaining the nonstop patrolling, or the fact he’s barely making ends meet, or how he’s so relieved to be on spring break that he almost never wants to go back to school. It’s not fair to dump all that on this stranger, especially since Deadpool seems to have enough on his plate already.
“And your shoulder…”
Peter grimaces. “Working too hard, is all. It’s not too far from here, so if you’re okay, I should probably get going—?” Peter tries to pull out of Deadpool’s grasp but finds it too strong. If he tugged hard enough, he could probably break free (he can stop a bus with his bare hands, this is child’s play comparatively) but he doesn’t really want to.
“Let me call you a cab.”
“I can’t take a cab in the Spidey suit!”
“It’ll be fine. Trust me!” Deadpool uses his grip on Peter’s hands to tug them to the edge of the alley. Somehow, in the blink of an eye, he’s got both of Peter’s hands engulfed in one hand, and is using the other to type rapidly on a phone he pulled from god-knows-where. By the time they’re stumbling out onto an empty sidewalk, there are headlights approaching them rapidly. “He’s a personal friend. Totally chill with the superheroing stuff. He might ask you to sign something for his nephew but you can say no, it’s not a big deal.”
Peter watches the cab pull up. The passenger side window rolls down and the driver leans across the center console with a bright, wide grin. “Hello, Mr. Pool and—Spider-Man!”
Peter blushes under his mask. “Hi.”
“Dopinder, this is my new bestie, clearly you already know him. Think you can get him home? He’s just plum tuckered out.”
Peter’s caught up in Deadpool’s weird chattering and barely realizes he’s being herded into the cab until the door is shut. The window rolls down and Deadpool leans in, shooting him a grin that Peter doesn’t understand. Namely because it shouldn’t be possible to grin with that mask.
“Dopinder is the best, and he won’t tell me where you live so you don’t have to worry about me stalking you that way or anything.”
“That way? So I need to worry about you stalking me in other ways?”
Another grin. Peter might even think Deadpool is fluttering his eyelashes. “If I tell you, it won’t be as much fun, will it?”
Peter finds himself smiling back. “No more jumping off buildings.”
Deadpool nods. “Alright, Spidey, just for you. I’ll take it easy, but you’ve gotta take it easy too.”
Peter won’t, but he doesn’t tell the other man that. “Goodnight, Deadpool.”
“Night.” Deadpool stands and slaps the side of the cab like one might slap a horse’s rear. “Thanks again, Dopinder!”
“Goodnight, Mr. Pool!”
And then they’re off, speeding into the night. Peter should probably be more worried about, like, laws or speed limits or pedestrians, but instead he props his head up against the window and dozes lightly after giving his address to Dopinder. He falls asleep fast and hard and when the cab lurches to a stop, he rouses groggily.
“We are here, Mr. Spider-Man,” Dopinder tells him in a hushed voice. “I am sorry, perhaps I should’ve driven slower to allow you more time to rest.”
“No, no, it’s okay. I’d rather sleep in my bed than a cab, y’know.”
Dopinder nods sagely. “A wise choice.”
“What do I owe you?”
Dopinder waves off the question. “Any friend of Mr. Pool is a friend of mine.”
Peter doesn’t argue; he doesn’t have any cash to spare anyway. “Uh, Deadpool said you might want something signed? For, ah, a nephew?”
“Oh! That’s kind of him. Unfortunately, my nephew is very into Captain America now. Or, not unfortunate, because Sam Wilson is incredible, but it’s as though Spider-Man doesn’t exist to him.” There’s an awkward beat before Dopinder grins uneasily. “Sorry.”
Peter laughs. “It’s alright. Maybe I can see about getting Sam to sign something.” The world may not know who Peter Parker is, but Spider-Man still has an in with the Avengers. Even if he’s still not Sam’s favorite after that whole scuffle on the tarmac a few years back. “Thanks again.”
“You are most welcome, Mr. Spider-Man!”
Peter clambers out and watches the cab speed away before going around to the back of his building where there are no lights. He scales the wall quickly, climbs into his apartment through the unlocked window, and all but collapses onto his bed. He doesn’t even bother taking off the suit aside from his mask. He tugs the sheets up over him, curls to face the wall, and swears softly.
“I forgot to get milk.”