Chapter Text
Deadpool had a problem with head wounds, and it wasn’t just that they hurt like a motherfucker .
The problem with head wounds wasn’t so much the bullet, blade, screwdriver or what the fuck being lodged forcefully into his cranium, it was what happened when his brain started regenerating.
See it only took one bullet to ruin his entire mood. One bullet to tear through some precious brain tissue and one bullet to make a braincell regrow backwards or some shit, and it was bye-bye to happy-go-lucky, jokes-to-hide-crippling-insecurities Wade Wilson and hello to blood-thirsty, knee-cap-collecting Deadpool .
He figured it was a chemical thing, the rearranging of his brain that flipped the switch, but the other thing with a literal hole in your head was that it left figurative holes in your head, too. So maybe he’d once known the sciencey explanation for his turn-on-a-dime mood swings, but at some point a corkscrew or maybe a well-swung baseball bat had caused that little tidbit to clip out like a bad Play Station One graphic. Or maybe blind rage was a perfectly reasonable reaction to being shot. Who knows.
But a head wound was exactly what had turned today into a shit show. It was a slow night by New York’s standards so he was playing hero to a smaller crowd than usual-- it was this thing he was trying out, having a conscience, being the good guy -- which had led him to trying to stop a convenience store robbery. Piece of cake, usually. The red spandex and pair of katanas was usually more than enough to make the thieves piss themselves, but apparently not tonight. One of the thugs had decided to fire a bullet right into Wade’s head at point blank range, which hey, credit where credit is due, was ballsy as hell. But it had meant that when Wade had picked himself up off the floor and cracked his neck a couple times, blinked back the black spots in his vision, that the guy was screwed.
Wade didn’t kill him. He just did a very thorough job of making sure that the guy and his accomplice weren’t going to be able to make a run for it before the cops could arrive. The clerk cowering behind the counter throwing up at the sight had just been a little extra bonus.
But his mood was still ruined for the night, so he took himself off the streets, taking to rooftops to avoid the temptation to find some cathartic release for his sudden foul mood. The problem with causing a little bloodshed in New York however, was that you always ended up with one of the city’s spandex-clad Nancy Drew motherfuckers on your case, and tonight was, of course , not going to be an exception. And just to make the downhill slide a little steeper, it was Spider-Man coming to give Wade some morally righteous beatdown. Wade knew it the moment he heard even the faintest hint of Spidey’s measly hundred-and-fifty pounds of superhuman ass flinging through the air in his direction, and maybe, usually, he would welcome a little bit of a beatdown from his favorite arachnid-themed hero, but not tonight.
Tonight, he didn’t have any favorites.
The yelp of surprise Spider-Man let out when he was grabbed by the ankle, mid-swing, was more rewarding than the scream the convenience store robber had let out, trumped only by the wheezy sound of pain Spidey let out when he threw him down to the ground. His reflexes didn’t leave him there for long, naturally, but Wade savored it while he could before continuing on his way.
“Deadpool-- what are you doing!” Spider-Man sounded downright affronted by the brief and embarrassing exchange, or maybe it was more the fact that Deadpool was walking away without even a quip, a dirty joke, a pick up line so bad it made his skin crawl. Deadpool was just waving over his shoulder and making his way towards the rooftop’s stair-well access.
“Trust me, baby, you don’t wanna do this tonight.” Wade warned, his voice a raspy baritone that went largely unheard by others. His voice was usually a cartoony pitch, sickly sweet and annoying. His voice now made dread roil over Spider-Man. But he couldn’t just let Wade leave, either, so with barely a thought he webbed the door handle shut, barely missing Wade’s reaching hand that closed abruptly into a fist.
“I know what you did-- what were you thinking, Wade? You said you wanted to be a good guy!”
Wade exhaled slowly out through his nose as he turned, grimly resigning himself to the fact that this was going to happen tonight, that Spider-Man wasn’t going to take the warning shot.
Spider-Man’s mask was surprisingly expressive, a little thing Wade had always enjoyed, especially tonight where he could imagine his eyebrows shooting up when Wade slowly drew one of the blades off his back, and charged. Of course he knew he wasn’t a fair match to Spidey’s reflexes, and he didn’t entirely resist when the katana was wrenched from his grasp by a thread of webbing-- mostly because that wasn’t his plan to begin with. Apparently even on his worst nights, he no longer wanted to murder Spider-Man. He was more than happy to ram his elbow into Spidey’s throat, though, as he brought down the full force of his weight on him, slamming them both onto the ground, the cement of the rooftop rasping along Spider-Man’s back through his suit and ripping up Wade’s knees for about three seconds before the healed right back up again. Spider-Man was choking through his mask, his head thrown back and hands scrabbling along the ground uselessly. Wade was a fairly good judge of other people’s pain levels, and Spidey was somewhere on the excruciating vein as he spluttered and gasped for breath through a windpipe that was going to be aching for days . Wade had been considerate enough not to break or rupture anything, though. No serious, long term harm done.
“I told you you didn’t want to do this tonight, sweetheart .” Wade ground out, his face only inches above Spider-Man’s and his forearm clamped hard across Peter’s chest, keeping him there until he had at least recovered enough to get Wade off of him. He was strong enough to throw him across the rooftop on an average night, but Wade had got the drop on him and he’d hold his upper hand for as long as he could. Right now it seemed like he couldn’t even speak. Good . “And I don’t need to hear it! You wanna talk about being the good guy, huh? Me turning over a new leaf? I said I would didn’t I, but so far-- what’s the fucking point!” He punctuated his point with a sharp press down onto Spidey’s chest, which made him wheeze. “Every time, every damn time I slip up, you throw it all back in my face. It doesn’t matter that I haven’t fucking unalived someone in months , that I only use the rubber bullets. It doesn’t matter that you say we’re friends or that I’m a better person , because every time I step even a little bit out of line with your morally-righteous bullshit I’m suddenly so lowly in your opinion that I might as well go back to getting paid for my party tricks!”
“W-Wade--” Spidey managed to gurgle out, his hands shoving at the arm keeping him pinned down, although even Wade knew that he was pulling his punches with the attempt to get free. Was he actually listening ? That would have to a be a new damn mutation in his powers.
“Shut up! I’m not fuckin’ wrong this time, Spidey. I know I fuck up a lot, I fucking know that I ain’t all together up here, but friends don’t fuck with each other like this . You don’t get to throw me to the bottom of the pile every damn time I make a mistake!”
The silence rang out deafening between them for what felt like a long cycle of both of them breathing heavily, Wade from forgetting to breathe during his rant, and Spider-Man trying to regulate himself again and discover a new way to breath that didn’t make his throat feel like it was on fire. While he breathed, carefully, Spider-Man’s hands came up to Wade’s shoulders, which tensed under the touch and he pressed harder into Spidey’s chest in warning. The hands stilled for a moment, as if to prove they meant no harm, before they started moving again, roaming up to gather up Wade’s mask and slowly pull it up and off of his head.
“J-Jesus, Wade ,” Spider-Man hacked out, swallowing and wincing as he ran his fingertips through the grisly patch of half-dried blood that covered half of Wade’s head and ran down his neck. He was searching for a wound but wasn’t surprised to find that there wasn’t one. Of course. “Wh-what?”
The touch and the questions made something start trying to snap itself back together in Wade’s head. His anger didn’t dissipate, but his underlying murderous intentions were maybe starting to soften. He huffed out through his nose, grinning bitterly. “What? You think I fucked that guy up for no goddamn reason? He shot me in the head, Webs. Head wounds make Wade-y go a little wacky .”
“I-I didn’t--”
“Oh no. No. Don’t act like you wouldn’t’ve come down on me like a tonne of bricks if you’d known and don’t think I ain’t still angry .” Wade snarled, although it was a little harder to keep the heat in his tone now-- Spider-Man had that effect on him, and right now Wade was resentful of the fact. He didn’t want Spidey’s concern to derail his anger, snuff out the point he was trying to make. Just because the guy touched him? Willingly looked at him, maskless? That’s so fucking weak . Wade cursed under his breath and lifted himself off of Spider-Man, letting him breathe normally again. Spidey gradually pushed himself up into a sitting position, running his hand over his throat gingerly before he rucked his mask up to his nose, visibly panting and it didn’t capture Wade’s attention at all . “I know I fucked up tonight. Start giving me the credit of being able to realize it .”
“I-” Spidey caught himself, licking his lips quickly before trying again. “You’re right. You… You have come a long way, Wade. I shouldn’t keep… Treating you like you haven’t.” He finished awkwardly, and Wade was guessing that Spidey was watching him under his mask and Wade was guessing that they were holding each other’s gazes in that moment. It wasn’t a spectacular apology, or… Even really an apology, but it was the start of one, and it made the tension in Wade’s shoulders relent a little.
“Damn fucking straight.” Was the eloquent reply Wade came up with, before rubbing at the flaking, dry blood on the side of his head. This was the problem with bouts of rage-- the come-down was always so unspectacular. Anti-climatic. Two assholes in red spandex, sitting on a rooftop in mid-town and a few blocks away, two thieves coming to terms with life without feet, or trigger fingers. The silence stretched on longer than Wade was capable of handling, getting twitchy where he sat as he grasped around for something to say. “Why’d you take my mask off?”
“Huh?” Spider-Man seemed to have been day-dreaming in the silence, one hand still delicately stroking his bruised throat.
“Before. Why’d you take my mask off?” Wade clarified, reaching to pick up the mask in question, turning it over in his hands slowly, slipping a finger through the hole the bullet had left just above and behind his left ear.
“That.” Peter nodded slightly, “I noticed the hole, and… I can’t remember the last time you attacked me. I thought, maybe something was wrong with you. Or maybe it… wasn’t you at all.” Deadpool went very still for a moment, before bodily turning towards Spider-Man. The look on his face was incredulity, causing a slight pinch between his brows. “What?”
“You-- privileged motherfucker -” Deadpool snapped reaching out to grab the front of Spidey’s suit, yanking him in close so that there was about an inch between their noses, and Wade’s very threatening looking mouth. “You honestly think the only explanation for me wanting to beat that fine ass of yours into a pulp is that there was something wrong with me or it wasn’t me at all?”
Spider-Man had actually squeaked when he’d been grabbed, having falsely assumed that he’d gotten his dose of manhandling for the night done and out of the way already, and he threw his hands up in surrender as Wade growled toxic at him and his apparently poor choice of words.
“No, wait! Wade--”
“You might be my damn hero, Webs, but I will happily drag you down from that cloud of yours any day.”
“Wade!” Spidey’s hands waved listlessly for a moment, before he cupped Wade’s cheeks in them and lurch himself forward the inch or so that was left between them and kissed him. It was a brief kiss, long enough for it to register, and then it was gone again and Wade was sitting there, dumbstruck and blissfully silent for the time being. His mouth fell open in a belated reaction. “Calm down. I’m glad it was just… you. Just you. And that you said what you said.”
Wade’s mouth moved over silent words for a moment, brow more furrowed than before as his brain restarted, or something. His hold on the front of Spidey’s suit went limp.
“You just. Kissed me.”
“To shut you up.” Spider-Man explained matter-of-factly, clearing his throat which he immediately regretted because it felt like swallowing around a cinderblock. “So I could say that I’m-- glad. That you kinda lost your rag at me and said all of that. Because-- you’re right. Like I said. You’re right. I keep treating you like you haven’t been getting better-- and you have. And it was kind of shitty of me to assume that you weren’t being yourself when you said all of that, but you were. You were being yourself.”
Wade squinted slightly, some internal debate rearing its head as he found himself questioning that, undermining it. He’d rolled the thought around that being shot in the head made him flip a switch and, in fact, not be himself. And here Spidey was affirming that he had been very much himself . Whoever that was.
At any rate, these were the facts; Spidey was recognizing that he had been kind of an asshole with his high-and-mighty expectations and, more importantly, Spidey had kissed Wade.
“Can we just rewind to the kiss because I’m still trying to get a handle on that.” Wade said it without a hint of joking, and yet Spidey was laughing at him like he had said something hilarious, which was highly possible most of the time, just not right now . Once Spidey’s peals of laughter died off, he shook his head a little, ducking his gaze and all. His hands were still on Wade’s cheeks which sent off a separate chain of thought around the fact that Spidey had been willingly touching his fucked up skin for a while now. The jumble of emotions was worse than the damn head wound, at least then it had been a clear switch of feelings. The fuck was this carnival mess?
“Uh. I guess I can’t really talk my way out that one, can I?” Spidey breathed a laugh, his smile small and sheepish.
“Fuck no, Webs. That happened.”
“It-- it did. It did happen. I guess because, I wanted it to. And also to shut you up. It was actually effective for a little while there, too.”
“You wanted it to.” Wade parroted, cherry-picking the parts of this conversation he actually wanted to hear.
“Yeah...” Spidey replied, slowly, as if he was figuring something out as quickly as he could put words together. “Even after you tried to crush my windpipe, apparently.”
“Wait- wait-- so, you’ve wanted it to happen for a while now? What the fuck, Webs! What the fuck! You gotta start talking right now, or my head’s gonna implode tryna make sense of this--”
“Or we could not talk.” Spidey offered up, cutting Wade off with a gentle squeeze of his cheeks. Wade could easily imagine his wide, undoubtedly pretty eyes behind his mask. Oh, hell yes.
“Talking afterwards.” Wade insisted.
“Yeah-- yeah, of course.” Spidey nodded and licked his lips, and Wade felt suspiciously like he was being lied to, and his head was overflowing with questions about how they had gotten to this point, but then the gap between them was closing again and Spidey’s lips were against his, and Spidey’s lips were a little dry and cracked on the surface, but still incredibly warm and pliant, and shit, Wade felt as shaky and nervous as he had been the very first time he’d been kissed (well, what he recalled as his first kiss. Who actually knew, not the point--), but he wasn’t going to be the first one to pull back and, Spidey seemed nervous as well, even as his hands stroked down to rest on the back of Wade’s neck, instead, unflinchingly.
Wade had a new problem with head wounds now, and that was the threat they posed to this exact memory.