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The last thing Deadpool says to Spider-Man is supposed to be a joke. It comes out bright and careless, thrown into the night like every other stupid thing Wade says because silence makes his skin crawl.
“Spidey, Spidey, Spidey,” he says. “Now would be an excellent time for you to become a missing person.”
Deadpool laughs through the words and doesn’t mean them at all.
The two of them have been hanging out on a rooftop, bantering and bickering to pass the time, so the sentiment is well-meaning even if the words are sharp. It’s just harmless fun. Later, when hindsight is twenty-twenty, Wade comes to loathe every word in that sentence, but at the time, he’s blissfully unaware of what the future has in store.
Spider-Man laughs, too, bright and joyful.
“Fine, fine! I’m going,” he says, getting up from the roof and dusting himself a little. “My spider sense tells me I’ve lost enough brain cells to your ramblings anyway. I’ll be seeing you around, Pool.”
He stretches his limbs a little, as if to check that all systems are online. Deadpool stares abashedly, drinking in his fill with his eyes.
Sometimes looking at Spider-Man is like looking at the damned sun.
He’s just… bright. Warm. Beautiful. But he’s good above all else, and that means something. Everyone adores him: the public, the press, other superheroes, hell, probably half his own rogues' gallery. Even Deadpool.
It grates on Wade sometimes that his name is on that list. Mercs with a Mouth aren't supposed to get soft over aspirational, boy-scout superheroes. It ruins the image he’s trying to uphold. So, Wade buries the adoration under layers of noise. He teases. He pushes and prods. He tells Spider-Man to become a missing person, never realizing the universe is listening.
Spider-Man leaps gracefully off the roof into New York’s neon glow, his red and blue swallowed quickly by the night. Deadpool stays behind too long, watching the empty air where Spider-Man had been, feeling something warm and foolish shift in his chest.
The next morning, Wade reads in the newspapers that Spider-Man fought Green Goblin that night. That’s the last piece of news Wade hears about Spider-Man.
...
At first, Wade just waits.
He sits on their usual rooftops, watching the horizon for a flash of red against the night sky. He waits for his favorite arachnid to drop out of thin air, land beside him with a quiet thud, and tear his ego down with a clever quip or a smartass remark. Wade waits for that bright laugh. He waits, and waits, and waits.
Spider-Man doesn't come back.
No traces. No sightings. No body. It’s as if the city swallowed him whole.
“This is stupid,” Wade mutters to the wind. “Nobody just disappears.”
Months blur together. Wade hunts down rumors in the underbelly of the city, buying whispers with cash, threats, and violence. A guy like Spider-Man doesn't just go quietly. There has to be a scent, a blood smear in an alley, a witness with shaky hands. Somebody must know the truth of what happened to him.
So, Wade asks around. He keeps an eye out and an ear to the ground, but the city stays silent. Nobody seems to know what happened to Spider-Man. He’s simply gone like he was never even there.
By the one-year mark, the extended silence no longer feels like a mystery. Wade stops looking because every unanswered question has led him to the same answer. Spider-Man wouldn’t abandon his precious New York willingly. He must be dead.
Wade buys a bottle of cheap vodka, climbs to the highest rooftop he can find, and uncaps it.
“You were the best of us, Webs,” Wade whispers to the empty skyline and drains the bottle until his throat burns.
Grief sits in his chest for a long time afterward.
...
To honor Spider-Man’s memory, Deadpool sometimes picks up the slack in secret during the long years that follow.
He fights Spider-Man’s themed supervillains, taking his anger and grief out on them with precise bullets and sharp blades. He makes sure the fights take place in secluded corners of the city, so nobody will ever find out about it, but he does it nonetheless. Deadpool leaves the criminals behind, badly injured but alive, for the authorities to find.
“You could be so much more,” Spider-Man had told him once, back when the world was a little brighter place.
Wade still doesn't know what Spidey saw in him. Deadpool is a dumpster fire on his best days, an ugly stain on humanity on his worst. But the memory of the voice sticks like a bullet buried too deep. So, Wade tries. He tries to be better. He tries to do better. He tries to be someone Spider-Man could be proud of.
Wade isn’t sure why. It’s not as if a dead man cares whether Deadpool is a decent human being or not.
“Pain in the ass,” Wade grumbles under his breath as he tries to stuff an unconscious guy in a rhino suit into a dumpster. “So damn preachy. I can hear you nagging from beyond the grave, you know that?”
By year two, Wade realizes the kid actually pulled it off.
Deadpool is better. Not good by any stretch of imagination, but less rotten than he used to be. A small, pathetic part of him hopes that Spidey is watching from somewhere, maybe feeling a little proud of the monster he managed to tame.
“Stop it,” Wade mutters, knocking his knuckles hard against his masked temple. “Get over it.”
He pushes Spider-Man’s ghost back into the shadows of his mind, but it always lingers there at the periphery of his thoughts.
…
Sometimes Deadpool sits alone on the rooftops he used to share with Spider-Man and has entire conversations with a dead man:
“I mean, you have to admit, it was a solid burn,” Deadpool says, gesturing with a half-eaten pretzel. “‘Now would be an excellent time for you to become a missing person.' Iconic. Timeless. I really delivered on that one. Real last words material.”
He pauses, leaning his ear toward the cold wind as if listening to a reply.
“Oh, shut up,” Deadpool snorts, rolling his eyes beneath his mask. “You did laugh. Don’t try to rewrite history, Webs. You dusted yourself off, dropped a line about losing brain cells to my genius, and took a dive off the edge. You were totally giggling.”
A gust of wind howls past. Wade takes a bite of his pretzel, chewing slowly as his posture slumps, the theatrical brightness draining out of his shoulders little by little.
“You could’ve picked a better night to drop dead, though,” Wade mutters, his voice losing its cheerful edge. “Goblin? Really? You let that green fruitcake get the last word?”
Deadpool stares out over the skyline.
“I looked for you, you know,” he says quietly to the empty rooftop. “Every dark alley, every inch of this blood-soaked city. Not even a thread of web left behind. It’s rude, Spidey. Really bad etiquette for a supposed good guy.”
Wade sets the rest of the pretzel down on the cold concrete. He has suddenly lost all appetite, but something still turns his stomach.
“You told me once I could be so much more,” Wade whispers into the quiet night. “Well... I’m trying. Beat Shocker’s ass last Tuesday. I didn't even shoot him! Just knocked him out cold. You’d be insufferably proud of me.”
He lets out a long, exhausted breath. “You should come back and see for yourself. You’re missing all the fun.”
The rooftop remains silent, because the fact is that Spider-Man isn’t coming back.
Wade wonders if it might be time to come to terms with that.
...
Then, on the third anniversary of Spider-Man’s disappearance, the Daily Bugle runs a front-page smear piece in his memory:
“SPIDER-MAN: HERO OR COWARD? THREE YEARS SINCE THE MENACE ABANDONED NEW YORK,” the headline screams.
Wade reads the paper in a diner, his hands shaking violently with his anger.
He doesn't kill J. Jonah Jameson. Instead, he spends the afternoon mailing fifteen glitter bombs directly to the Bugle’s executive offices.
“See?” Wade mumbles. “No explosives. You’d love it, Webs.”
After dropping the final package in a mailbox, Wade buys a bánh mì from a food truck to celebrate. He wanders down the sidewalk, chewing thoughtfully, congratulating himself on his restraint, when the world stops moving.
A quick shadow sweeps across the pavement. Someone nearby gasps, dropping a cardboard cup of coffee and pointing wildly toward the sky.
Wade reflexively reaches for a sword, expecting some C-list villain to drop out of the blue. He tilts his head up.
The sandwich slips from his fingers, falling face-down onto the concrete. His heart slams against his ribs.
High above the avenue, cutting through the clear blue sky, is an unmistakable flash of brilliant, bright red.
...
Wade is a coward.
If he were a brave man, he’d have sought Spider-Man out the second that streak of red crossed the sky. He would’ve cornered him, grabbed him by his blue-and-red shoulders, and demanded to know where the hell he’d been for three years.
Instead, Wade goes home, locks his door, and hides.
He stays inside his apartment for a full week, letting his mind warp around this impossible new reality. Spider-Man isn’t dead. He’s alive. He’s breathing the same smoggy New York air and walking the same filthy streets again.
At first, Wade feels an overwhelming, terrifying burst of pure elation. But as the days bleed together, the joy twists into something sharp and tangy: anger.
The anger wins.
Wade gears up and heads out into the night to track down the ghost he’d grieved for years.
He finds Spider-Man perched on a fire escape in Hell’s Kitchen, staring blankly down at an empty alleyway.
“You!” Deadpool snarls, pointing a gloved finger at him.
Spider-Man flinches, turning his head slowly. “Deadpool?”
His voice sounds hollow, almost surprised.
Deadpool doesn’t waste time with a reunion speech. Words are too clean for the feeling that’s clawing up his throat. He lunges, swinging a right hook aimed straight for Spider-Man’s jaw.
But three years of absence haven’t dulled Spider-Man’s reflexes any. He dodges with ease, weaving under the blow with impossible grace. Wade’s fist meets nothing but empty air.
“You!” Wade splutters again. “You absolute asshole!”
“Me,” Spider-Man confirms softly.
“Where have you been?” Wade pulls his katana halfway from its sheath, ready to hack Spidey’s ego into confetti. “I thought you were dead! I thought Goblin turned you into street paint!”
“I’m not dead,” Spider-Man says lamely.
“I can see that, genius! But I thought you were! I grieved you!” Wade shouts, his voice cracking beneath the anger. “I drank terrible vodka! I fought the fucking Rhino for you!”
Spider-Man tilts his head, looking almost confused.
“Oh,” he says. “I… I didn’t think anyone would notice.”
The fight drains out of Wade instantly, replaced by a sudden, sickening weight in his chest. “Well, I noticed! Holy shit, Spidey. You’re so fucking stupid.”
Spider-Man doesn’t offer a snappy comeback. He only nods mutely, his shoulders slumping.
Wade lets go of his sword hilt. He closes the distance before either of them can get smart about it and drags Spider-Man into his arms. He buries his masked face against his red shoulder, clinging as if the universe might try to snatch Spidey away again if he lets go.
Spider-Man goes completely rigid in the embrace. He doesn't move. He doesn't hug back. But Wade doesn't care; he just holds on tighter.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” Wade mutters into the spandex. “I’m so fucking glad you’re alive.”
This seems to genuinely surprise Spider-Man.
“Oh,” he murmurs again, his voice barely a whisper.
“Stupid,” Wade repeats, a thick, familiar warmth flooding his chest despite the raw anger still lingering around the edges.
“Yeah,” Spider-Man agrees quietly.
He remains as stiff as a statue in Wade's arms, but he lets Wade hold him, which is more than Wade thought he’d ever have again.
...
Spider-Man has returned, but he is changed.
He used to be the sun: blinding, warm, and impossibly bright. Now, he feels like the moon: still brilliant, but pale, cold, and drifting millions of miles away. There’s a heavy shadow sitting on his shoulders, making him older than his years.
Wade is terrified to ask what broke him, so he doesn’t.
“Where were you?” Deadpool asks instead a few nights later as they sit together on a familiar rooftop they used to share so easily back in the day.
“I was…” Spider-Man hesitates. “Something happened. I had to stop being Spider-Man. I needed to just be… me. For a while.”
His civilian self, Wade interprets. The mysterious, normal guy under the mask who Wade has never met, but always respected enough not to pry into.
“You vanished without a trace, Webs,” Wade says, unable to hide the sharp string of hurt in his tone. “Not even a note.”
“I know,” Spider-Man says, entirely unapologetically. “It felt… necessary at the time.”
“But you’re back now? For good?” Deadpool checks.
“I’m back,” Spider-Man confirms. The words are heavy, loaded with grim responsibility rather than any joy. The light-hearted hero who used to make terrible puns constantly is gone. Wade misses him so fiercely it aches in his bones, but he swallows the grief down. He takes his hurt, buries it deep in his chest, and forces on a lighter tone.
“Well, good,” Wade hums, swinging his legs over the drop. “Because I kept it safe for you.”
Spider-Man tilts his head, confused. “What?”
“New York,” Wade says, gesturing widely at the glowing cityscape. “I tried to keep it safe. Picked up your slack. Beaten up all sorts of weirdos. Left 'em wrapped up for the cops.”
“You did?”
“Yeah.”
“...But you thought I was dead,” Spider-Man says softly.
“It was still your city,” Wade shrugs, suddenly feeling a little self-conscious. “Seemed like the least I could do to pay the rent for living in it.”
Spider-Man turns his head, staring at Wade for a long, silent moment.
“Thank you,” he says gently.
Wade’s heart does a traitorous little flip. “Don’t make a big deal out of it, Webs. You’ll ruin my rep.”
...
Spider-Man doesn’t laugh anymore.
Before he disappeared, he laughed easily. Getting a snarky chuckle or an annoyed groan out of him used to be as easy as breathing, but he used to laugh real laughs, too. Now, this new moonlight-cold Spider-Man is entirely locked behind glass.
“C’mon, Spidey-pie,” Deadpool whines, nudging the side of his boot against Spider-Man’s heel as they sit on a ledge and watch over Times Square. “Give me something here. You’re making the air all thick and broody.”
Spider-Man doesn’t move, but he sighs a little. “I’m fine, Pool.”
“You’re not fine! You’ve missed years of my delightful, comedic presence!” Deadpool dramatically swoons backward. “Maybe this will cheer you up: I stopped myself from blowing up J. Jonah Jameson’s office with actual C4! I used glitter bombs instead! Fifteen of them! The man’s mustache is going to sparkle until the next century!”
Spider-Man pauses. A tiny fraction of the tension leaves the set of his shoulders. “...Glitter?”
“Fifteen packages! To defend your honor!” Deadpool boasts, sitting up and pointing at his own chest. “I’m a changed man!”
Spider-Man looks at him, bewildered. “Why would you do that?”
“Why?” Deadpool snorts, rolling his eyes beneath his mask. “Isn’t it obvious? I missed you, idiot.”
Silence falls over the rooftop. Wade instantly regrets it because that was too real. He opens his mouth to cover it up with a stupid joke.
Before he can, Spider-Man reaches out his foot and gently nudges Deadpool’s boot right back.
“I missed you, too,” Spider-Man whispers. The words are raw, fragile, and entirely honest.
And Wade realizes that he doesn’t adore this moonlight Spider-Man any less than he adored the sunlight one. The lingering hurt in his heart feels a little easier to carry with this realization.
…
They start sparring again.
“I’m rusty,” Spider-Man admits one night in an abandoned warehouse, adjusting his web-shooters. “I need to get my edge back.”
“I’ll happily kick your ass into next Tuesday!” Deadpool declares with a theatrical bow.
And he tries. But even a rusty Spider-Man is a force of nature.
They trade blows. Spider-Man's defense is a little sloppy and his attacks a little uncertain, but he’s still fast and strong beyond belief, so he keeps up beautifully when Deadpool comes at him with his swords swinging. For Wade, it’s pure bliss. It feels like stepping back into a life he thought was lost forever.
After an hour, Spider-Man lands hard on his knees, panting, staring at his gloved hands.
“I suck,” Spider-Man sighs, his tone bitter. “If I fought a real threat right now… someone would get hurt. I’d end up dead.”
Wade flinches, a sharp spike of anxiety piercing his gut at the word dead. He forces a laugh, twirling a blade before sliding it into his back sheath.
“Then we spar every night,” Deadpool says, stepping over and offering a hand. “As many times as it takes until you’re back to your annoying, acrobatic self.”
Spider-Man looks at the extended hand for a second, then takes it, letting Deadpool pull him up.
“Again,” Spider-Man says firmly.
Deadpool grins beneath his mask, dropping back into a fighting stance. “Come at me, bugboy.”
Spider-Man attacks, and Deadpool is so fucking grateful that he can barely breathe.
...
Weeks bleed into months, and slowly, a new routine forms.
Wade isn’t sure what heavenly court he bribed to earn Spider-Man’s company again, but he guards it fiercely. They patrol together, share lukewarm street food, and sit on cold fire escapes.
Spider-Man still doesn't joke or laugh, but he begins to relax in Wade’s presence. His rigid posture melts into something easier whenever Wade is around. Wade compensates for the quiet by talking enough for both of them, filling the night air between them with continuous noise.
Eventually, the quiet safety between them feels sturdy enough for Wade to push just a little.
“I’m just saying, Spidey,” Deadpool mumbles around a mouthful of a taco, “If you ever plan to drop off the grid again for another three years, give a guy a heads-up. Do you have any idea how hard it is to maintain a high-calorie mercenary diet through intense emotional heartbreak? My body is a temple, and your absence turned it into a greasy diner.”
Spider-Man turns his head slowly. “You ate at greasy diners every single day before I left, Pool.”
“Details, details!” Deadpool waves a salsa-stained hand dismissively. “The point is, my delicate heart can’t take it. Next time you decide to vanish, leave a sticky note. ‘Dear DP, gone to buy milk, don't let Jameson win, xoxo.’ Is that really too much to ask?”
Spider-Man lets out a tiny, sharp exhale through his nose. It’s not a laugh. It’s barely a breath. But to Wade, it’s the best sound he’s heard in three years and more.
“I’ll be sure to put it on my to-do list,” Spider-Man says softly. “Right below 'don't let Deadpool blow up newspaper offices.'”
“Hey! I used glitter, Spidey!” Deadpool gasps, clutching his chest in mock offense. “That’s called character development! You should be writing me a thank-you note.”
Of course, this new serious Spider-Man reads too much into that too, growing suddenly grave and grateful.
“Thank you,” Spider-Man says quietly. “For the glitter. And... for keeping an eye on the city.”
Wade feels a rush of golden warmth burst in his chest. He grins under his red mask, pleased.
“Anytime, Spidey. Though, honestly? I’m still finding craft glitter in places glitter should never, ever be. Can you imagine?”
“I am actively trying not to,” Spider-Man replies dryly, and it is almost a lame joke.
Wade counts it as a massive, historic victory.
...
Despite these quiet moments, an edge of desperation begins to creep into Spider-Man’s superhero work.
He pushes himself brutally hard on patrol, swinging into dangerous situations with an almost reckless disregard for his own safety. He acts like a man trying to pay off an impossible debt.
Wade can’t help it. He worries a little.
Then, one night, sitting high above the neon glow of the city on the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge, Spider-Man finally breaks and reveals the truth about that debt.
“I killed someone,” he admits.
The sentence is small, flat, and completely devoid of emotion.
The air leaves Wade’s lungs instantly. The distant hum of city traffic fades to absolute silence.
“What?” Wade chokes out, the word heavy on his tongue.
“I killed someone,” Spider-Man repeats, clearer this time. “That’s why I left. I couldn’t... after it happened, I couldn’t wear the mask. I couldn't even look at myself.”
Wade’s mind races, trying to process the words. Spider-Man. The guy who won't even let a bank robber break an arm.
“What happened?” Wade asks, his tone dropping its usual levity, replaced by a rare, dead-serious quiet. “Who was it?”
“She fell,” Spider-Man whispers, and for the first time since he came back, his voice shakes enough to sound alive. “Gwen. I tried to save her. I shot a web. I caught her right before she...”
He stops, taking a sharp, ragged breath that sounds like tearing paper.
“I caught her,” he repeats, his fingers digging into his knees so hard the suit fabric strains. “But it’s not the fall that kills you, is it? It’s the sudden stop.”
A cold dread settles in Wade’s stomach.
“You don’t know that,” Wade says quickly, reaching out a hand, though he doesn't dare to touch him yet. “Spidey, that’s not how killing works. If you failed to save someone, that doesn’t mean—”
“I did the math,” Spider-Man interrupts. “The velocity, the tension of the line, the whiplash. I calculated it a thousand times over three years. I snapped her neck. I killed her.”
“She fell!” Wade argues, his voice rising with fierce, protective instinct. “You tried to catch her! Dying because the rescue went wrong isn't murder, Spidey. It’s a tragic fucking accident!”
“I loved her,” Spider-Man whispers, ignoring Wade’s outburst completely. “And I killed her.”
Wade sits in silence, the brutal weight of the confession hanging between them. He finally understands the moonlight. He understands the coldness, the ghost-like silence, the long years of hiding in the dark, suffering alone.
“Why did you come back?” Wade asks softly.
“Because the Bugle was right,” Spider-Man sighs, his posture bowing under the phantom weight of his sins. “I ran away like a coward when people in this city needed help. I was being selfish. I have to pay back what I owe.”
Wade turns to him fully and slaps Spider-Man firmly on the back of his masked head. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to rattle his teeth.
Spider-Man startles, turning his head in shock. “What—”
“Shut the hell up, you absolute idiot,” Wade growls, leaning in close. “Listen to me. You’re allowed to grieve. You’re allowed to hurt. But don't you ever sit there and tell me you’re a monster for trying to save a girl’s life.”
“You don't understand—”
“I understand that you’re human,” Wade says, and the anger drains out of him until only the ache is left. “Human beings break, Spidey. Even the ones dumb enough to carry a whole city on their backs.”
Spider-Man stares at him in stunned silence.
“You’ll grieve for as long as you have to,” Wade says, looking out over the shining skyline because looking at Spider-Man feels impossible right then. “And then, one day, whether it takes five years or fifty, you’re going to smile again. A real one.”
Wade doesn’t add that he intends to sit right beside him every single night until that day comes. He doesn't have to; it should be obvious enough.
The silence lingers for a moment between them, then Spider-Man lets out a shaky breath. “I don’t know what I’d do without you.”
Deadpool huffs a laugh. “Not like you ever have to—”
But his sentence tapers off mid-sentence when Spider-Man lifts his hand, reaching towards his ever-present mask. It’s right then and there, under Wade’s awed stare, that Spider-Man pulls off the red mask, revealing a devastatingly ordinary and beautiful face.
He has soft, honey-brown eyes, a dusting of faint freckles across his cheekbones, and dark hair flattened haphazardly from the suit. He looks tired, impossibly young, and entirely, heartbreakingly human.
Wade’s breath hitches. His brain throws out every joke, every deflecting remark, and every grand speech he’s ever rehearsed in his head. Suddenly he has nothing but mute awe and the soft, fond glow that’s become too pronounced to deserve any other name than love.
“I was so tired of wearing the mask," this familiar stranger says softly, his fingers curling into the spandex mask resting on his lap. "But when I lost her, I was terrified when I took the mask off. I thought there wouldn't be anyone left inside.”
Wade swallows past the lump in his throat, slowly removing his own mask. The cold night wind hits his scarred, ruined skin, but he doesn't flinch. He lets himself be bare, too.
“There's someone here, Spidey,” Wade says, his voice rough, stripped of all its usual theatrical flair. “And he's worth saving.”
The man who is Spider-Man turns his head slowly, taking in Wade’s bare face without a single trace of hesitation or disgust. A soft, faint exhale leaves his lips, something like a sigh of relief.
“My name is Peter,” he whispers, the confession small and tender in the crisp night air. “Peter Parker.”
“Wade,” Wade chokes out. “Wade Wilson.”
And then, it happens.
It’s not the bright, blazing sunlight laugh from three years ago, but as Peter looks at him, the corners of his mouth lift into a soft, breathtaking expression.
It's a moonbeam smile, quiet and beautiful, breaking through the dark.