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Peter awoke to whispering in his ear, a voice that he recognized but couldn’t make out the words that were being said, what between how loud everything was and the uncomfortableness of the seat under him and the Goddamn– honking of a horn?
“Wha–?” Peter attempts to reach up to scrub at his eyes, but. He’s wearing his mask. Something he’d definitely not had on when he fell asleep.
“Webs, Webhead, get up!” Wade is now whisper-shouting at him, and Spider-Man tilts his head backwards to try to get a good look at him, make sense of where he even is and wow, since when was the Deadpool suit that tight? He can see practically every outline of his muscles and– “Spidey, baby, you gotta trust me on this. Jump when I say.”
“Yeah, yeah, I can jump,” Spider-Man mumbles, and leans back into where his head was pillowed on Deadpool’s shoulder, with all the intent of going back to sleep. Then he realizes what he’d said, and springs up from the seat, narrowly avoiding smacking his head against the low roof of the school bus they’re in. “Wait, jump?”
He looks around, and sees at least a hundred people, all filed into this bus, dressed in all sorts of colours and patterns, bright and screaming at you to look. He can already feel a headache coming on, and their music and odd dancing all blending together is not helping. They all look like they’re going to a rave. No, they look like– video game characters?
“Where the hell are we?” Spider-Man hisses at Deadpool, but if he gets an answer he doesn’t hear it as suddenly the backdoor of the bus flies open, and cold air is rushing through at an alarming pace. This realization that they are definitely not on a road makes Spider-Man trip over his feet, tearing the nearest window open and peering through it only to realize.
They are flying.
“C’mon!” He doesn’t have time to dwell on the where, or why, or how, because Deadpool is pulling him from the window and towards the open door, ushering him out. “Don’t forget to thank the bus driver!”
“The– what?” Spider-Man yells at him, and tries to spare a look back at the front of the bus, but Deadpool is screaming in his ear to jump and. Well, there is nowhere else to go but down.
“Thank you, Mister Bus Driver!” Deadpool gets the last word in, and is jumping out, tugging Spider-Man with him. Then they’re free-falling.
“We’re gonna fucking die!” Spider-Man screams over the wind rushing in their ears, and scrambles to hold onto Deadpool, ending up plastered to his back, piggybacking him in a death-grip. “Wade!”
“That’s the point, Baby Boy!” Deadpool tells him, and laughs like he’s crazed. And, okay. Peter thought he’d been getting better, dealing with his whole suicidal-ideation which, Peter doesn’t even really blame him for because, hello, Wade can’t ever die, that’s bound to drive you to a suicide attempt here and there. But, he’d never tried to get Peter to do it with him!
“Do you even have a parachute?” Spider-Man squeezes his eyes shut tight and prays that Deadpool knows what he’s doing, and isn’t trying to literally kill him, though absolutely everything is pointing to it right now.
“A wha–? Oh, a glider? Yeah! ‘Course I do.” Deadpool says, and suddenly he’s pulling out something that is very obviously not a parachute. It’s a fucking piñata. Shaped like a huge unicorn, wearing a Deadpool mask, equipped with a matching saddle and all.
“What the fuck is going on, Wade? Explain! Now!” Spider-Man does not let his grip on Deadpool up, even though they’re now sitting on this piñata that is flying them through the sky, and his belt is kind of digging into Spider-Man’s ass with the way he’s got his legs wrapped around Deadpool’s middle, he does not feel safe enough to let go. He’s taking Deadpool with him, even if he doesn’t seem worried about anything that’s happening.
“I was kidding, by the way. I’d never let you die, Spidey. That’s why we’re in this together.” Deadpool says, matter of factly, and nods his head like everything’s fine.
“And what is this?”
“This? Oh, Battle Royale. PvP.”
“Wade, this feels like a bad trip. Did we get our hands on superhuman acid?” Spider-Man groans, and pushes down the feeling of nausea from, well, everything.
“It does seem like that, huh? Nah, I don’t think we’re tripping balls right now. I think we’re in a video game.” Deadpool tells him, and Spider-Man hadn’t realized how close they were to the ground until they’re touching down and Deadpool had somehow folded his ridiculously large piñata, shoving it into his belt.
Spider-Man’s feet touch the ground, and he’s falling onto his knees, just barely restraining himself from kissing the oddly plastic-y looking grass beneath him. Deadpool steps closer and toes at him with his boot, to which Spider-Man swats away with his hand, only to realize he doesn’t have his webshooters on.
“Baby, get up. We gotta find a gun, or three. I’m not picky.”
“I don’t have my webs!” Spider-Man brings his wrist to his face, tries to tug his glove up to see if it’s maybe under , but he can’t. The glove is stuck to him.
“Which is exactly why we need guns. C’mon!” Deadpool tugs him up by his armpits, and Spider-Man just lets him, he is so confused.
Spider-Man raises his head to spare a glance around, see where they even are, and it looks like they’re in a campsite? There’s a great big lake, and a bunch of RVs even though there’s no one except them around, but he doesn’t have time to see more because Deadpool is opening a door and pulling them both through and–
“Oh, hello.” Deadpool sounds genuinely shocked to see another person there, which is weird because they’d just been in a flying school bus with like, a hundred other people, but, okay. Spider-Man stands up straight, knocking Deadpool’s hands away from him, then looks to the person.
“Wade, why does this bear look like you?” Spider-Man leans back to whisper, and Deadpool looks at him for a moment before shrugging his shoulders.
The bear does nothing to acknowledge them, just keeps pacing back and forth like they’re not even there, until Deadpool reaches out to tap on it’s shoulder.
“Lemme guess: you need my advice. Combat, tactics, or fashion?” Bearpool? suddenly turns to them, and it sounds awfully automated.
“Fashion,” Deadpool says, and Spider-Man reaches out to smack him upside the head, which makes Deadpool grumble out, “Webs, I think it’s an NPC.”
Spider-Man shakes his head at him, pinching the bridge of his nose tight, still not all convinced they’re not having a shared acid trip gone wrong. He reaches out the same way Deadpool did to tap at the bear’s shoulder, seeing as it had already turned away from them to resume it’s pacing in this– bathroom? Why are they in a bathroom?
“Hey there, sorry for my, uh, my– Deadpool, he’s–”
“Lemme guess: you need my– Oh my god!” Bearpool stops it’s dialogue short and lets out a girlish squeal. “You’re Spider-Man! One time I wrote a story where you and Deadpool were roommates and… Oh, sorry, that’s embarrassing.”
Spider-Man tilts his head at the bear in confusion, and blinks. “How do you know that…?”
The bear doesn’t reply though, just turns away from them again and continues it’s pacing.
“Um,” Deadpool says and Spider-Man turns to him, grabs his arm and drags him out of the odd bathroom. He slams the door behind them as they go, and bunches up Deadpool’s suit in his hands to pin him against the nearest wall. “I think the game devs ship us.”
“What game? Wade, where the hell are we? Tell me something, anything! What is going on?!” Spider-Man yells at him, and immediately feels awful for it. He leans his head forward, resting it on Deadpool’s shoulder, dropping his hands to smooth out the front of his suit, which had just. Snapped back into place, right against his body, bondage-latex-style. “I’m so confused.”
“I know Baby Boy, I know. ‘M sorry. I’ll explain, yeah? I’ll explain,” Deadpool brings a hand up to the back of Spider-Man’s head, trying to be reassuring. “I think we’re in Fortnite.”
“For– what?” Spider-Man mumbles, tilting his head to try to peer up at Deadpool, who looks down at him in turn.
“Oh, sorry. It’s an Earth-199999 game. Thor endorsed it.”
“So what, it’s like a Spider-Verse thing? Really?” Spider-Man leans away from him to give him an unimpressed look, which Deadpool can see even through the mask.
“Not really? I don’t think so, we’re just, in a video game.” Deadpool shrugs, and it makes Spider-Man groan, placing his head in his hands.
“Okay, fine. How do we get out?”
“We win?” Deadpool smiles at him, and Spider-Man racks his brain for any other solution, with the talks of guns and winning he doesn’t like where this is going, but ends up nodding his head, unable to think of a better plan. He trusts Wade, he can trust him to get them out of this.
Deadpool pumps his fist in the air in victory, and sets off running towards the cabin on the hill, practically forcing Spider-Man to chase after him.
After Deadpool had opened enough of those gold, magical chests that had made Spider-Man have to cup his hands over his ears, the sound they emit getting on his nerves after the second time they’d found one, and picked up some random weapons floating on the floor glowing all sorts of different colours, he’d decided he’d had a decent enough load out to where they could head out. Head out to where, Spider-Man still had little to no clue.
So that’s how he’d found himself driving a random truck, keys already in the ignition and fuel tank full like someone had just been driving it, and. It’s starting to freak him out, so he tries not to think about how they could possibly, maybe, be in a sudden apocalypse and not a bizzare shooting game.
Deadpool’s in the passenger seat after insisting Spider-Man had to drive, especially since he’d refused to pick up any kind of gun, specifically ignoring the pick-axe he somehow knew he had on him. He’d had it since they’d landed on the ground, but wouldn’t pull it out, using the excuse he didn’t know how, but he definitely did.
“C’mon, Spidey, just take it. Everyone else in the round has them, you gonna be the noob running around with nothing ’cept a few bandages?” Deadpool thrusts a shotgun out at him, but Spider-Man ignores it, not even turning towards him, keeping his head straight and both his hands on the wheel.
“Quit it, ’m driving,” Spider-Man mutters out, but Deadpool doesn’t let up, just waves the gun in his face like it’ll tempt him. He doesn’t even want to touch a gun, not for a millisecond, and Deadpool having an entire load-out of guns of all kinds, equipped with real ammo and not rubber bullets for the first time in ages, is making Spider-Man feel a bit queasy. “Where even are we? Where are the roads?”
“Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas no-mo’.” Deadpool drawls, and Spider-Man snorts at the reference.
“Y’mean New York?”
“Potato, tomato. Webs, come on,” Deadpool is pleading at this point, and Spider-Man spares a glance in his direction just to see how he looks when he begs. Well, he knows what that looks like already, but– ”I just wanna know you’ll have something to protect yourself, just in case. Please?”
“I have my fists. I don’t need your ‘protection’, I’ve been protecting myself longer than you’ve known me.” Spider-Man tells him, and sees Deadpool deflate like a balloon.
“That’s cold, Pete.” Deadpool mumbles, and cycles through what he has on him, pulling out guns and tucking them back into wherever the hell he’s keeping them, finally settling on pulling out a chicken leg.
“Sorry, y’know what I mean. I just– You shoot, I drive. Yeah?” Spider-Man takes a hand off the wheel to place it on Deadpool’s thigh, which Deadpool not-so-smoothly takes into his own to hold. Spider-Man feels a grin tug at his lips, and coughs to cover it up, even though Deadpool can’t see it under the mask. “I’m still not okay with this, though. No killing still applies even if we’re video game characters. Seriously.”
“But Webs! They’re not even real! They can’t feel pain! I wanna win…” Deadpool does his best impression of a depressed puppy, and it makes Spider-Man roll his eyes at him instead of the intended guilt that comes with Wade’s puppy eyes. He’s a grown man, for fuck’s sake, they both are. It does not work on Peter, especially not when Wade’s guilt-tripping him into trying to give him his blessing to kill people. Even if they really aren’t real, it’s still killing.
“You gonna eat that or just keep holding it? Where’d you even get it from?” Spider-Man gestures at the cartoonish chicken leg he’s still clutching, trying to distract him into a new conversation topic.
“Oh, this? Shot a chicken for it,” Deadpool tells him, and reaches for his mask to roll it up to his nose, as one usually does with a mask, but it just. All comes off, in one go, putting his entire face on display. “Um.”
Wade reaches behind his head, grasping at nothing upon realizing his mask had vanished into thin air, and it somehow appears back on his face after a swipe of a hand. Wade does it again, and again, repeats the motion that magically takes his mask off and puts it back on again for him, and Spider-Man slows the car down until they’re fully stopped.
“Wade,” Spider-Man breathes out, turning to face him completely. He watches in amusement for another few seconds, then reaches for Wade’s free hand to take it into his own. “Wade, stop– Huh,”
“What?” Wade turns to him, and Spider-Man leans back into his seat to take a good look at him.
“Your eyes are yellow. Like, fully. And glowing.”
“They’re what?” Wade pulls his hands from Spider-Man’s, and reaches for the rearview mirror, tilting it towards him and leaning in to take a close look. “What the hell.”
“Yeah, I think you’re right. We are video game characters. You look– cool,” Spider-Man leans into him to see what Wade sees in the mirror, hooking his chin over the other man’s shoulder. “I’d play as you.”
“I look freaky. Freakier than normal, like straight up Freaky Friday.” Wade sighs, and Spider-Man laughs into his shoulder, barely muffling the sound. He places a kiss on Wade’s cheek, and turns back to the wheel.
“Y’look cute.” Spider-Man mumbles, and Wade turns his head to grin at him.
“Yeah? Let’s see what you look like.” Wade says, and Spider-Man is curious to what he looks like in this ‘game’, if he has any changes to his appearance like Wade.
He reaches up to slip his mask off too, but finds he can’t. There is no separation from his collar like his usual suit, which, okay. Fine. So he reaches behind him for the hidden zipper he knows he has, but there isn’t one either.
“I– can’t,” Spider-Man grits out through his teeth, pulling with all his might at what he can grasp of the skin-tight suit, but it is not coming off. It’s stuck to his skin, like it is his skin. “It won’t come off. Wade–”
“Let me try,” Wade swats Spider-Man’s hands away from his back, looks for any crease or separation in the suit, even pulls at the fabric the same way Spider-Man did, but can’t pry it off. “Oh ma God. Pete, we’re skins.”
“We’re what? ” Spider-Man is trying not to panic, but it’s kind of hard when you can’t even take your mask off and your suit has basically become your skin. Your boyfriend not helping whatsoever is also not reassuring him, like, at all.
“We’re skins! In Fortnite! Spidey, people pay money and play as us!” Wade sounds way too excited over something that sounds so– creepy. “They couldn’t decide which version of you to put in Fortnite? Shame.”
“So I’m stuck like this? That’s what you’re saying?” Spider-Man says, and lets a bit of his worry bleed into his voice, just a bit.
“I’m guessing there’s only a Spider-Man skin, not Peter Parker. So, yeah. Guess so.”
“Great. Just, great.” Spider-Man knocks his head against the wheel, gripping it tightly. Then, Wade is telling him to shush and leaning out of the open roof of the car, pulling out a sniper rifle.
“There’s someone here! Babe, watch me waste this motherfucka!”
“No killing, ‘Pool!” Spider-Man tugs at his legs, trying to drag him back into the car so he can drive them away, to keep him from killing someone, but Wade’s finger pulls the trigger and the sound of a bullet whizzing through the air is all he hears.
“Headshot!” He guesses it landed when Wade cheers, and does some kind of bizarre victory dance and– where is that music coming from?
Spider-Man pushes Wade over to take a look at who he’d killed, pulling himself up and through the sunroof, but. There’s no body, just more of those coloured guns and ammo, along with materials and tiny bottles of those odd beverages Wade had told him to just, pour all over his face.
“Where’s the body?” Spider-Man questions, turning to Wade with his hands on hips, and Wade is still dancing. “Stop dancing!”
“There is no bodies! Just loot!” Wade quits his dancing, and wraps his arms around Spider-Man, twirling them around the best he can when they’re standing in a car with their heads out the roof.
For one second, Spider-Man lets them stay like that, with Wade’s arms wrapped around him and trying to get him to celebrate his kill with him, the next– Wade is getting shot in the head and his inventory of weapons spills around Spider-Man’s feet.
“What the fuck?” Is the last thing Spider-Man says, staring down at what’s left of Wade which, isn’t much, and the next he’s also going down and absolutely nothing falls from his body.