Chapter Text
On the corner of 79th and 2nd in the Upper East Side, there is a high-rise apartment building. On the roof of that apartment building, on the east corner, there is a bloodstain.
Peter couldn't tell you who it's from, God knows he forgot that fucker's name as soon as he was dealt with. But he does know it's there by his hand.
Standing dead in the middle of it, letting the smell of old iron seep into his nostrils, he catches his breath, pulling his burner out of his utility belt to check his agenda for the night. Johnston case: check, Georgie Ramone: pending, let Mrs. Garcia's cat in-shit.
He shoves his burner back into his utility belt, adjusts the bottom half of his mask, and shakes his wrists out before pressing his palms to warm up his spinnerets. He could probably take care of the cat on the way to Ramone. It could be clean. Webs over the face, dangle him from the ceiling by his feet. Asphyxiation with no finger marks and a broken neck. Elegant.
If this could be done in under two hours, that would be great. He had too many Rheology papers to grade. He doesn't know how some of these undergrads survived the weed-out courses.
He cracks his neck, staring down at the street below. It's a Tuesday in early May, or maybe Wednesday by this time, who knows. An uncharacteristically quiet night, though Peter may have just jinxed himself with the thought. His break over, he shifts back into his work persona. Peter throws himself forward into a handstand.
Recluse lets himself fall towards the street.
-
Georgie Ramone's apartment smells like cheap vetiver cologne and damp. Recluse can tell his trash hasn't been taken out in a couple weeks, half the food in his fridge is rotten, and that some of the pipes in the kitchen are corroding. The place is a mess. Is this a set-up?
Recluse is confident enough in his abilities to win a fight. He decides to wait, to see if Ramone or someone else will show up and make this worth his while. He slinks into a dark corner, black work uniform helping him blend in with the shadows.
He stays there, poised, and he doesn't know how long he waits. His eyes drift closed while he focuses on his own breathing. And then there's another. Another breath, not from himself. Not from the doorway down the hall to his right. From the window, getting closer.
Broken glass rains down onto a filthy vinyl floor, out of Recluse's field of vision, and the sound is bitingly bright after endless silence.
A figure stalks through the living room, heavy footsteps making the flooring creak. The unknown steps into Recluse's field of view and-
"Not you again." Recluse says.
Deadpool startles and whips around to where the modulated voice came from. Not expecting him. It wasn't a set-up, Ramone is just a slob. His mask twists, conveying joy.
"Rec-loosey-goose, we've got to stop meeting like this." Deadpool snarks.
Recluse steps out of the shadows, uncharacteristically slumped.
"This is the fourth time this year." Recluse sighs. The man drags a hand over his face, though he can barely feel it through his mask. He continues. "Are you here for Ramone too?"
Deadpool poses with jazz hands, drops it, and nods solemnly. Recluse lets out another deep sigh. He definitely jinxed himself.
"Did De Nicolo double book us?" Recluse questions. Deadpool perks up.
"And oh boy, I'm happy he did. Usually if I'm seeing a twunk in harnesses, I'm suffering Vegas." Deadpool declares. Recluse braces himself. "Cirque du Soleil, more like Cirque du smokin' male, hot damn, I don't know how you do it." Recluse considers blowing his years-long cover to stick to the ceiling and crawl away. "I know you don't do guns, but I'm really hoping you blow my brains out, ya know, cause, no guys, I can do that myself-"
"I'm leaving." Recluse states. Deadpool's mask scrunches up again.
"Noo, baby. We can scam De Nicolo together." Deadpool says.
"How? Our modus operandi are wildly different. You slash and shoot, I suffocate."
"Oh yeah, with that nifty spray-ooze of yours, right, geez you sound like White-WAIT, you slash too sometimes, I've seen you do it." Deadpool narrows the eyes of his very expressive mask.
"I only slash traffickers and rapists. This guy's an-" Recluse shifts his weight and cocks his head. "Why am I still talking to you?"
Deadpool kicks his leg up and frames his face with his hands. "You lurv me." He croons. The effect is only slightly ruined by the bulging muscles and fourteen million pistols on his person. He returns to a normal stance.
"C'mon Lucy, we can-" Recluse cuts him off.
"Shut up, he'll hear us."
"Someone's got his panties in a twist." So what, Recluse's wound-up. Not every day he deals with a green-collar criminal.
"Bye, Deadpool." Recluse makes his way to the broken window. He slips through and scurries down the side of the building, dropping down into the alley bordering it.
When he's three blocks away, he hears a gunshot, then a few seconds later, the splat of a body against pavement. He didn't need the job badly anyway.
-
Ok, so if he finishes up his distillation and mixes up a solution of concentrated adipic, then he wouldn't need as much macroglyc-
"Mr. Parker?" Peter doesn't look away from his distillation, instead opting to straighten his posture from where he's shrimped over his set-up. His senses would alert him if there was an impending explosion. He looks to the side to find a cowering boy with an iPad tucked under his arm.
"Hmm?" He motions for the frightened undergrad to speak.
"I was just wondering if you could help me with this Linear Algebra assignment, I don't really understand the criteria for eigenfunc-"
"Didn't you learn this two weeks ago?" Peter snaps. The undergrad looks defeated.
"The homework isn't due until tonight." He says.
"Isn't it almost finals?" The boy nods, guilty. Peter sighs and grabs at the kid's stylus.
He's halfway through explaining derivatives of natural exponents when someone screams from across the lab. He shoves the younger man behind him and switches off the heating mantle before cramming them both under his workstation.
"Relax guys, I don't even have grenades today!" Deadpool exclaims.
Fucking seriously?
Peter lets himself have exactly two moments of grief for the day he could've had before whispering for the student to stay still and rising from his crouched position.
"Oh-em-gee, hot nerd!" Deadpool says. Please can this not be the moment he's exposed. "I've never been in a lab during the day before, gotta say, this is fun." He continues. Peter tries his best to keep a neutral face.
"Hello Deadpool, do you have authorization to be here?"
"He knows who I am!" Peter switches the heating mantle back on. Deadpool starts whispering to himself, "Yellow, shut up, he's right there."
"Authorization?"
"Nah, sorry, I'm here for one Peter Parker, about yea high, super smart, Masters in..." Deadpool pretends to check a notepad, nods, and looks back up. "...chemical engineering!" Why him? Peter discreetly reaches for the chemical rack, fingers brushing over a bottle of nitric acid.
"To kill or...?"
"Nah, see, he used to be the photographer for a certain webhead until aforementioned webhead disappeared off the face of the Earth." Peter inches his arm away from the acid, glances at the naphtha fraction dripping into a flask, and looks up at the approaching mercenary. "And the last newspaper article about Spider-Man from the Bugle had a fresh photo." Shit. "So I think Parker knows more about Spider-Man's disappearance than most."
"And why would Deadpool be interested in Spider-Man?"
"Because Deadpool's client is paying a pretty penny to get the guy killed."
Shit.