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On Peter’s sixteenth birthday, Matt met him on his favourite perch with cake. It was kind of high up, and Peter had no idea how the man had got up there with the cake still mostly intact, but he had. There was one candle sticking out of it. It was homemade, in a way that nearly made Peter cry; he knew Matt cared, but not enough to bake him a birthday cake! The icing was red, and had definitely been applied by a blind man. He wondered idly if he could smell the difference in food colouring, but then decided he'd probably just asked Foggy.
“I’m not sure lighting it will work with the wind up here, but we can try. Happy birthday, kiddo!”
“Not a kid any more!” he announced, delighted.
“What d’you mean you’re not a kid any more? Not-kids don’t get childish things like cake or presents!” He held it up out of reach, and Peter grinned and climbed the wall for height, leaning out to grab at it. Matt was faster though, teasing.
“What do you mean presents?” Peter asked, giving up and dropping back down.
“Ah…” Warning finger.
“Fine, 16 is still a kid,” Peter pouted.
“Right. And don’t you forget it.” Matt produced a small package from his suit pocket. It was wrapped inside out.
“You know, if I hadn’t believed you were really blind, I would now.”
Matt shoved him. “Open it.”
The other side of the wrapping paper had penguins on it. They cheerily announced what a Merry Christmas it was to the world.
“A memory stick?” Peter asked.
“On there is everything I could discover out about organised crime in Queens.”
Peter hugged him, wordless. He got an awkward pat on the back, like this was too much emotion to handle and the Devil was tapping out.
“I thought it was time you moved up in the world from bike thieves and muggers,” Matt said, like he was unsure of the response and felt the gift needed explanation.
“And lizard people! Don’t forget the lizard people!”
“How could I forget the lizard people?”
“And the Avengers!”
“Well… yeah. And the Avengers.”
“What’s first on the list?”
“I’ll show you. They’re meeting tonight. Big drug deal.”
It wasn’t a warehouse for once. This particular drug deal was happening in a pizza place.
“Some of the best food comes from mob fronts,” Matt said. Peter filed the information away for later analysis.
They were crouched on the roof of the building across the street, watching people gather below, for all the world like this was actually just a party. With really big guns.
“Walk me through what we’re gonna do.” Peter’s heart warmed with the knowledge that the older vigilante trusted him to make the call, but he couldn’t let it get to him. There was too much at stake.
“So, we need to make sure that the police find them with enough evidence to get them put away, otherwise this is pointless-”
“Hang on,” Matt interrupted. He sounded stressed. The spidey sense went wild. It didn’t like that tone at all.
“What? Where?”
Matt seemed to relax a little, but kept his hand near his holster. “An old friend’s in the area. He’s… volatile, but he probably won’t hurt you. He might not even be here for us, he had no way of knowing we’d be here. You can keep talking me through your plan.”
Oh, alright then. Probably not murderous volatile old friend in the area, but let’s just keep on yapping.
“Seriously, Pete, it’s okay.”
Peter closed his eyes for a second, attempting to ease the tingle in the back of his neck.
“So, yeah. Evidence. Are there actually drugs down there, or are they just talking?”
“You’re okay on that front. I can smell them.”
“Great! Well, not great, obviously. But great for us! We should wait until they’re all there and talking, or negotiating, or whatever, and come in the windows. How many guys with guns are there?”
“Ten. Contract security, seems like. Mercs. They shouldn’t give us much trouble once we’ve started causing a little chaos. Big gun seems like a bodyguard. Seems the Mafia’s been going through some personnel changes, but that means one of the current heads is in there.”
“Cool! This doesn’t change anything, though-”
A hand landed on his shoulder.
He froze.
Matt was beside him, both hands visible.
The spidey sense had been going off pretty consistently, whining in the back of his head like a mosquito trapped in a room with him. Why hadn’t it given him any actual warning?
“Happy Birthday Itsy Bitsy!”
Peter looked up slowly to meet a mask similar to his own. Red. White eyes. But this one had something a lot more sinister going for it. That effect was helped by the sword hilts poking out above massive, red clad shoulders, and a slightly terrifying number of guns about its person.
Peter really didn’t like guns.
“Deadpool,” Matt said, beside him. Fuuuuck. Peter had heard of Deadpool. Peter did not want to meet Deadpool. Peter was now standing in front of Deadpool.
“Red,” Deadpool said, as if they actually knew each other. “Taking the birthday boy out for a pizza party, are we?”
“In a manner of speaking.” Come on, Matt, you can’t seriously be chatting to this guy? Run? Yes? Big guns?
“You’re buying.”
“Crime doesn’t pay now?” Bantering? We’ve reached bantering?
“Oh, crime pays very well. You can’t blame a girl for wanting to be bought dinner, though, can you?”
“Wade.”
“Fine, I’m buying. You’re no fun.”
“Wade, you do realise what’s going on down there, don’t you?”
“Matthew, why do you think I’m here?”
“You gonna help us take them out?”
“As long as I get to repatriate some of the goods, yeah, I’m down for a party.”
“What?” Peter injected. He’d been looking back and forth between the two men, like watching a tennis match. They seemed to remember he was there.
“Wade, this is Spidey. Spidey, Wade. Deadpool. Immortal mercenary and assassin and pain in the ass. Almost as chatty as you.”
“Nice to meet you.” Deadpool stuck out a hand. Peter grasped it.
It came off.
Peter was not ashamed to admit he screamed. Loudly. And dropped it. Or tried to. It stuck to his fingers, as things tended to still do when he was stressed sometimes. He took a deep breath, regretted it, and set the hand down on the roof beside him.
“There, there.” Deadpool patted Peter on the back consolingly with his bloody stump.
“Please don’t bleed all over Spider-Man, Wade,” Matt said. “You know how long it takes to get blood out of a suit.” Peter stared at Matt.
“Before I forget, baby boy, I got you a gift!”
Peter froze again, like a deer in the headlights, and then spoke, slowly: “How do you know it’s my birthday?”
“Oh,” Deadpool waved the stump. Peter was horrified to see a tiny baby hand had started to grow from it. “I just do.”
He reached into a pouch attached to his belt and brought out a package. The paper was pink and had unicorns on it. With glitter on the horns. There was a splodge of reddish brown that was most likely from where it had been accidentally left in a pool of blood. Or intentionally. Who knows? Who wants to know? Not Peter.
He took it gingerly, looking at Matt, who winced. “Grenades don’t tend make the best gifts, Wade.”
Peter nearly dropped it.
Thank god for sticky fingers.
“Grenade?” he squeaked.
“Aww, Red, you spoiled the fun! Glitter grenade!”
“Glitter grenade?”
“Glitter grenade,” Deadpool said, suddenly serious. “Biodegradable glitter. Don’t you want to try it out?” Then he actually got down on both knees and made his eyes go round, grasping Peter’s hand and looking up at him, puppy dog style. “Please, please, please, pleeease? With a cherry on top and chocolate ice cream? And lots and lots of cake?”
Peter looked at Matt. “If you want. It’s your birthday.”
He said this in the same way someone might say ‘it’s your funeral’.
“Sure,” Peter said. “Why not? Glitter grenade.”
“We can make this a real party!!” Deadpool spread his arms out and started spinning, like a little kid playing airplanes, in a world of his own. Peter decided the only way to deal with the chaos was just run with it. That seemed to be Matt's policy, although he did wonder if maybe following Matt's policy here was a bad idea. Matt apparently knew this man. His common sense was suspect.
The glitter grenade, which Peter had the dubious honor of throwing in through the window to start them off, worked like a charm. After the initial panic had turned to confusion when the room became something from a four year old girl’s dream (if her favourite film was the Godfather), it had been relatively easy to round up the bad guys.
It helped that Deadpool was amazing at this. Once Matt had violently reminded him about not killing anyone, he was a one man army of chaos gremlins and hello kitty stickers. Which he stuck on everything he could find. Including big gun’s big gun. And forehead. And the mafia boss’s nose.
“Maaatt?”
“Peeeeter?”
They were sitting on a roof a couple of blocks over with a glitter covered box of pizza between them. Best pizza Peter had eaten in a while. Deadpool had just wandered off with about a quarter of the cocaine to who knows where. Peter wasn't going to ask.
“How do you know Deadpool?”
“Uh… I’ll tell you when you’re older?”
“I am older. This is my birthday!”
“Remember what we talked about earlier?”
“Uhuh.”
“I’ll tell you when you’re eighteen." He appeared to reconsider this: "Or, like, forty. If I'm drunk enough. I will never be drunk enough.”
“Yuck.”
“Peter, no. It’s not like that. It’s mostly not like that. It’s… never mind.”
“Yuck.” Peter repeated.
Image description: SM and DD sitting on a roof, covered in glitter, in front of a cityscape. DD has a hello kitty sticker on his helmet. SM is eating pizza.
SM - Does this happen every time you meet Deadpool?
DD - Pretty much.
SM - And you still...
DD - Pretty much.
DD - I am not having this conversation with a child.
SM - Yuck.
Image description: Team Red, where Deadpool is the only one happy to be there.
Text: Together, they are TEAM RED (Not a team, Wade!)