Spidey wheezes menacingly and glares at him, holding his side with the knife in it. “Will you shut up and get this thing out of me?” He huffs. “I think it’s barbed and I couldn’t manage to do it myself.”

     It does look like a pretty gnarly wound. Deadpool’s pretty sure if a non-super had a knife sticking out of them like that, they wouldn’t be alive to verbally abuse Deadpool about removing it.

     “Depends,” he hums, not moving from his lounging spot. “Do I get to keep it?”

     Spider-Man growls and then immediately winces. “Yes, you can keep the knife, whatever,” he hisses and Deadpool grins and pushes off the wall. “Just get it out of my fucking body.”

     “Such a mouth on you, baby boy,” he tuts, crouching down so he’s eye level with Spider-Man’s side. “Better keep that under wraps or you'll disappoint all the little old ladies you help with their groceries.”

     “Deadpool.”

     He gently lays a hand on Spider-Man’s side and inspects the injury. “I know, baby boy, just assessing what I’m working with. Don’t wanna cause more damage than necessary. Your healing factor might be keeping you alive right now but it’s still pretty shit, comparatively.” He tugs off a glove with his teeth and gently prods at the wound. Spidey hisses out a string of curses but doesn’t pull away. He likes to pretend he doesn’t like or trust Deadpool, but when it comes down to it he’s more than willing to come to the mercenary for help.

{Yeah, after Daredevil turns him down.}

[As if Spidey trusts that clown more than us. What’s a blind man gonna do about his stab wound?]

     “Oh, great, I was wondering when you two were gonna join the party,” Deadpool mutters to himself. The boxes don’t usually bother him on good brain days unless Spidey’s around.

{What can we say, Spidey interests us.}

[And arouses! Don’t forget arouses]

     “Yeah, well, just don’t go talking shit about Daredevil so close to Hell’s Kitchen. I’ve got enough repressed emotions to last me a lifetime, I don’t need him rubbing his Catholic guilt all over me, too.” Spidey snickers and flinches again, and Wade’s mouth tugs up slightly under his mask.

     Webs has gotten eerily good at clocking when Deadpool’s talking to him versus the boxes, and he only interrupts their conversations to make small comments, as if the hallucinations are actually there. It’s pretty fucking endearing.

{I’ll have you know hallucination is a derogatory term.}

[Yeah, we won’t be thought of this way in our own head!]

     Deadpool finishes his inspection of the wound and taps him on the hip. “Alright Spider-babe, this is gonna hurt like a bitch but it won’t kill ya. You ready?”

     Spider-Man lets out a shaky sigh and nods. “Yeah, just make sure to- Mother fucking god fuck!”

     “Kiss your mother with that mouth?” Deadpool asks blithely, wiping off his newly acquired blade with a baby pink handkerchief. Before Spidey can catch his breath, he presses the cloth to the weeping wound and Spidey begins a round of cursing anew. The wound manages to weep an alarming amount of blood before Spider-Man regains the presence of mind to spray at it with his web fluid to staunch the bleeding.

     Deadpool flips the knife in the air and catches it in one of his open pouches while Spidey wheezes like he’s run a marathon. On closer inspection, his finger is trembling on the trigger of his web shooter, too. Deadpool frowns. He always forgets what pain and blood loss can do to a person who hasn’t been tortured to the brink of insanity before. It’s a little disturbing to see his baby boy so shaky from one little stab wound.

[Brink??]

{You fell off that cliff years ago, bud. Why do you think we’re here?}

     “Jeez Webs, what happened to the days when you could get stuck and keep plowing through villains like it’s nothing? You losing your touch?”

     Spidey growls at him from where he’s bent over a few steps away, lenses slanted in a glare. “Not all of us can have a healing factor that runs on fucking unicorns and daydreams. Some of us need sleep and food to keep up with our injuries,” he hisses. Deadpool’s frown deepens.

     “You haven’t been sleeping?” There’s iron in his tone, but he can’t help it. How many times has he told this stupid, self-sacrificing stick bug that he needs to take care of himself. “You skipping meals?” He stands from his crouch and stalks toward Spider-Man, who manages to straighten up even as he still clutches his side. “The fuck did I tell you about skipping meals?”

     “Christ, ’Pool, relax! It’s not like I’m doing it on purpose.” He raises the one hand that’s not trying to hold his body together in surrender, and Deadpool crosses his arms, unmoved.

     “No excuses, baby boy. I told you last time that if you didn’t start taking care of yourself I was gonna do it for you.”

     “’Pool,” Webs complains, and Deadpool zips open one of his pouches and roots around for his wallet. What he comes up with is a handful of hundred dollar bills that he thrusts at Spidey.

     “Here. Go find yourself something to eat so you can pass out in a food coma at home. You’re not patrolling tonight.”

     “What?!” Spider-Man squawks. He shoves Deadpool’s hand away and straightens up further as his skin starts to stitch itself back together. “I’m not going home! And I’m not taking your money either. I’m- I’m fine.”

     Deadpool puts his hands on his hips, a few hundreds fluttering from his fist and onto the gravel of the roof. “I’d be more inclined to believe you if you sounded at all like you believe it yourself.” He thrusts out his hand again. “Take it.”

     “No,” Spidey says more firmly, familiar stubbornness creeping into his tone, and steps back. “I don’t want your money. I’m doing perfectly fine on my own.”

     “I didn’t ask what you wanted,” Deadpools growls, closing the distance between them again. “I told you what you’re going to do.” He smacks his hand on Spidey’s chest, making him rock back slightly. “Take. The. Fucking. Money.”

     Spidey goes unnaturally still for a moment and Deadpool mentally preps himself to tackle a fleeing spider and stuff the hundreds down his suit, but then Spidey relaxes and slowly slides a hand over Deadpool’s on his chest. Deadpool relaxes with him and lets go of where he was grasping the front of his suit through the bills.

     “I appreciate the concern, Deadpool,” Spidey says sincerely and Deadpool nods. He goes to step back but in the next second Spidey’s form blurs with familiar spider speed and Deadpool finds himself on the ground. Spider-man coats him in a generous layer of webs and lands in a crouch beside him from where he’d catapulted himself up on the wall. “But it really isn’t necessary,” he finishes. He places the pile of crumpled bills by Deadpool’s head.

[Crafty little bastard!]

     “That might have been really fucking cool, not to mention sexy as all fuck,” Deadpool praises from the ground as Spidey stands. “But I know you’re not stupid enough to think this’ll stop me.” Spidey crosses his arms and tilts his head to the side, looking Deadpool’s cocooned form up and down. From Deadpool’s position on the ground, his legs look a mile long and his head blocks out the sun, creating a stunning halo around him. It’s fucking angelic.

     “Those webs have the tensile strength of steel,” he says haughtily and damn if Deadpool isn’t a slut for cocky assholes. “They’re made to stop speeding trains and juiced up idiots like the Rhino. I don’t think you’ll be getting out of there for a good long while.” He reaches down and pats Deadpool on the head.

{Good cow.}

     Deadpool considers for a moment. He could totally break out of these webs with the spring-loaded adamantium knives he has concealed in the forearms of his suit, but he’s a lady of mystery. You can’t reveal your hand too early, even to The Amazing Spider-Man.

{I think you’re missing a ™ there, big guy.}

     “Whatever you say, sweetheart.”

     “Try not to die before the webbing dissolves, okay?” Spider-Man tells him, straightening [hah, gay!] up from his crouch. “I know you have a weird knack for dying in the most unlikely situations but I’d feel a little guilty if you do, so knock it off.”

     “Are you seriously trying to guilt me out of dying?”

     Spidey gives him an imperious look from above. “Just do what I say, ok?”

     “Aww, you do care!”

     “Uh huh, sure. Just don’t be a corpse the next time I see you, or we’ll have a problem.” Spidey latches a web onto an adjacent building and is off and swinging before Deadpool can even start to squeal and kick his tightly bound legs like a lovesick schoolgirl. Spidey cares about him.

{Is that seriously what you gleaned from that conversation?}

[He totally cares whether we live or die!]

{Pretty sure that’s his duty as a superhero}

[No one cares if we live or die! Stark used a flamethrower to get us to stop climbing his building last month. Spidey wants us to try not to die!]

{This is pathetic.}

・　・　・

     The next time Deadpool catches up with Spider-Man, he’s robbing a bank. Or, at least, that’s what the news alert he has on his phone for all things Spidey-related tells him. It doesn’t sound like his baby boy but, hey, everybody’s gotta eat. And if Spidey won’t take Deadpool’s money at least he’s taking measures to keep himself fed.

     Deadpool is very disappointed when he realizes the man in the Spider-Man suit is an imposter. He looks enough like him that most people will probably be bamboozled, but Deadpool is not most people. He knows Spider-Man’s body like the back of his hand, for gay and not-gay reasons alike.

[Name one not gay reason]

     For one, Spider-Man’s ass simply doesn’t quit. This guy’s ass though… Deadpool tilts his head, trying to calculate the curvature.

{You’re not calculating shit.}

[That is most definitely a gay reason]

     “Yeah, that ass is definitely quitting,” he decides. “No bounce to it at all. Hey, Fake Spidey! Who are you and what have you done with Spider-Man?”

     The imposter whirls around from where he’d been threatening the poor bank teller. Which is a good choice in that Deadpool is absolutely a threat that you should never put your back to, but a stupid choice in the sense that Deadpool’s not a threat you wanna face head-on, either. 

     “What the fuck?” The robber wheels his sorry excuse for a gun around [sloppy handling!] and aims it at Deadpool. Really, who actually uses a sawed off shotgun in this day and age? “Get lost, freak!” The guy shouts at him, voice breaking slightly. “This is my hit!”

     “Ooh, using ‘freak’, too? Definitely not Spidey’s MO.” Deadpool flutters his fingers over the twin Berettas on his hips, like a cowboy gearing up for a quickdraw. “Why don’t you go ahead and give little missy her money back and we can all walk away from this in one piece.” He dips his voice into a slow southern drawl and Fake Spidey’s lenses aren’t quite as expressive as the real ones, but Deadpool somehow gets the impression that the robber isn’t impressed. He hefts his sawed off shotgun and aims for Deadpool’s head.

{Welp, so much for the peaceful route.}

[Spidey’s gonna be sooooo pissed]

     Deadpool doesn’t even have to dodge the first shot; Fake Spidey clearly isn’t expecting the kick back from the gun and the bullets shatter the windows a half-foot above Deadpool’s head.

     “Hah! You couldn’t shoot fish in a barrel!” The second shot catches him in the shoulder and tears through his suit, taking chunks of skin and flesh with it. The impact of it knocks him on his ass. Deadpool’s breath punches out of him, but his skin is already knitting itself back together when he groans and sits up. “Aw man, I just patched that!”

[Kill the fucker before he ruins any more of your handiwork]

{Yeah, kill the man in the Spider-Man suit. Spidey will just love that.}

     Deadpool grumbles and staggers to his feet as the robber scrambles to reload. He’d clearly expected that shot to keep Deadpool down, but Wade’s not one to just lie there and let the other person do all the work. He’s considerate like that.

     “Hate to break it to you,” he grunts as he stalks forward and yanks the shotgun out of Fake Spidey’s hands. It splinters easily in half when he snaps it over his knee. What shoddy craftsmanship. “But I’m not a one and done kinda girl. I’m more into multiple rounds, if you catch my drift.”

     Deadpool winks and pistol whips Fake Spidey with the butt of the splintered gun. He drops like a sack of rice.

{That was anticlimactic.}

[Booooooo! This is a Deadpool fanfic, where’s the gore??]

     “Men just finish so quickly these days,” Deadpool sighs. The remains of the shotgun fall out of his hands and hit the floor with a thud that makes the woman cowering behind the counter flinch and whimper. Deadpool scratches the back of his head and looks around. “Huh. Somehow I imagined there’d be a lot more cheering than this.”

[Spider-Man gets way more cheers than this]

{If by ‘cheers’ you mean ‘dirty looks and death threats’, then sure.}

     “You’d think saving lives would warrant at least a little bit of cheering,” Deadpool mutters to himself. Now that he’s no longer distracted by Fake Spidey’s fake ass, he can hear the muffled sounds of crying and talking drifting through the door to the bank vault. He raises his gun and aims it at the lock to the safe. “Oh good, more civilians to save! Maybe they’ll cheer for me.” Before he can pull the trigger though, there’s the familiar sound of a body cutting through the air behind him and then red-clad boots are slamming into his back. Deadpool goes down with a heavy oof and his gun is immediately webbed to the floor where it’d been knocked out of his hand. He grins.

     “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” The love of his life asks him. Deadpool rolls over onto his back and folds his hands under his head.

     “Spidey, babe, you made it! I was starting to think I’d have to take care of this all by myself!” He props himself up onto his elbows and wipes imaginary sweat from his brow. “What a relief to have a real, bonafide superher-”

     “Do not finish that sentence,” Spidey orders from above him. Which, like, kinky. Deadpool dutifully snaps his mouth shut. “What’s going on here and why does it look like you’re robbing a bank?” He’s got his hands on his hips like an angry schoolteacher and Deadpool gives a long, low whistle.

     “I gotta say, Spidey, you looking down on me with that expression is really something. I had an ex who used to get that exact same look on her face when she was reaping the souls of the dead, and let me tell you–”

     A glob of webbing hits Deadpool in the mouth. “Just answer the damn question, ’Pool. Why did I get an alert that a man in a Spiderman costume was robbing Midtown Bank? And how did I just know that it was going to be you?”

[Wow, he’s in a mood]

     “Okay, first of all, I can hear you saying ‘Spiderman’ without a hyphen when you and I both know it’s ‘Spider-Man’ with a hyphen,” he says through the webbing because, hello, mask?? Spidey aims his web shooter at his face again. “And! Second of all…” Deadpool tilts his head toward where Fake Spidey is half hidden behind the reception desk. Spider-Man begrudgingly follows his gaze.

     “What are you…” His lenses widen comically when he sees his doppelganger crumpled on the ground. “What the fuck.” He immediately moves to check the man’s pulse like a good little superhero and Deadpool heaves himself off the ground, tugging at the webs on his face. All he manages to do is stick his glove to his mask.

     “What did you do to him?”

     “He’s fine, Webs. A little skull fracture never hurt anyone.” Deadpool joins him in a crouch beside the unconscious man. He pokes at the seams of his costume a little. “This shoddy craftsmanship, however, is truly painful. It’s like he didn’t even think to model it off one of your back up suits.”

     Spidey’s head snaps to him. “What.”

     “You know, the two suits you have for when your main one is out of commission?” Deadpool asks, flipping his free hand vaguely as he continues to inspect the suit. “One of them has a rip stitched up with black thread across the lower back and the other has a discolored patch under the right armpit?” He shakes his head, pulling his webbed hand along with it. “If this guy were a true Spidey fan, he’d know better than to use nylon of all things as the material. Mine is way more faithful to the real thing.”

{Now that’s just creepy.}

     There’s a long beat of silence in which Spider-Man just stares at him.“Wade,” he says slowly. Deadpool freezes where he's plucking at the fabric of Fake Spidey’s suit.

[Uh oh]

{Didn’t he kick us off a roof the last time he called us Wade?}

     “Um, yes?”

     “Are you telling me that you made a replica spidersuit? That’s based off of my backup suits that no one’s supposed to know about?”

{We made three, actually.}

     “Noooooo.”

     “Because if that’s what you’re telling me, I’m going to have to pick up this broken gun and beat you with it. Is that what you want?”

[God, yes]

     “...No?”

     “Then when we’re done here, I suggest you go find this imaginary spidersuit and burn it before I find out that it actually exists. Got it?”

     “But–”

     “Got it?”

     Deadpool’s head drops into an eager nod before he can stop himself. “Yeah, yeah, I got it.”

{Now that’s just pathetic.}

[I vaguely recall our S.H.I.E.L.D. dossier also mentioning that we have ‘no discernable ties to any known nation or agency’]

     “Pretty sure dat ass isn’t a nation or agency, so we’re all clear there,” Deadpool grumbles to himself. Spidey glares at him but doesn’t comment on what clearly wasn’t meant for him. Just another reason for Deadpool to adore him. 

     “So, are you gonna tell me what actually happened here?” He asks, standing from his crouch over his double. “And where all the civilians are? Surely there were people here when you were playing cops and robbers with…” He kicks lightly at Fake Spidey.

     “Well, I was trying to break open the vault they’re locked in when someone knocked me down. Oh, and there’s the bank teller.”

     “What bank teller?”

     “The one cowering behind the counter,” Deadpool says. He levers himself to his feet and moves to peer over the marble check in desk. “Hey, you can come out now. I totally took that guy out with my badass… Uh.” There’s no one there. All of the cash registers are open, though, and there’s a trail of loose bills leading to the emergency exit. “Well, that’s convenient.”

     “Pool,” Spider-Man grits out, taking in the scene behind the counter. “You let her get away?”

     “I didn’t know she was in on it! She looked all scared and shit, I totally thought she was being held up. That’s what I get for being sexist, I guess.”

     Spidey shakes his head and webs up all the loose bills into the bag the robber was using and webs said bag to the ceiling. “I’m going after her,” he tells Deadpool seriously as he replaces the cartridges in his webshooters. “Figure out how to get those guys out of the vault and make sure they see the paramedics outside.”

     “Sir, yes sir!” Deadpool salutes, a perfect replication from his time in the military. His CO would be proud.

     Spidey catapults himself back up toward the broken window he’d entered through and clings to the side. He’s just about to swing off when he pauses and looks back at Deadpool.

     “And Wade?”

     Deadpool gets a whole body shiver. “Yeah babe?”

     “Burn the fucking suit.”

・　・　・

     Deadpool does not, in fact, burn the fucking suit. Spider-Man might be his boo thang but he’s not actually his CO and Wade doesn’t have to do what he says. He never actually did what his real CO said, either, which is what earned him his shiny dishonorable discharge. If only they’d given him a badge for it like they do purple hearts and shit.

[We are so fucked in the head]

     Besides, he has plans for those suits. Good plans. Sexy plans. Especially since Spidey has expressed such a keen interest in seeing them destroyed.

{Remember what we said about not showing your hand too early?}

     The next alert he gets about Spider-Man is for realsies. Despite the fact that Spider-Man had caught the bank teller (who had been Fake Spidey’s inside woman, apparently) and recovered all of the stolen money, the media is still in a tizzy about the fact that ‘Spider-Man’ robbed a bank. They’re even more up his ass than usual, with The Bugle releasing a new article about him just about hourly. 

[The Bugle is this universe’s Buzzfeed, who coulda guessed]

     It’s thanks to this diligent and necessary reporting that Deadpool is able to track down Spidey when he takes his lunch break on top of the Flatiron Building in Manhattan. The clunk of Deadpool’s grappling hook catching on the ledge is familiar, as is the way Spidey twangs the line in recognition of his presence. Deadpool tucks the replica suit into his belt and begins his ascent.

     When he reaches the top, Spidey’s mask is already half raised and he’s rifling through a soggy brown paper bag with a smiling hoagie printed on the front. The ink is starting to run and it looks like the hoagie is crying.

     “Jesus, Webs, is that your lunch? I know your immune system’s pretty good but I’m not sure it’ll be able to withstand whatever new strain of botulism is almost definitely in there. Are you sure the guy who sold that to you wasn’t the Goblin in a mustache? Cause that’s the only guy I can think of who hates you enough to sell you an abomination like that. Here, let me–”

     “You got any mayo in your pouches?”

     “–show you what I… wait, mayo? You’re gonna further disgrace that sandwich with mayo? That’s just wrong, Webs. I’d expect this of Doc Ock, the freak, but I never thought you’d debase yourself to–”

     Spidey waves the sandwich in front of his face. “Mayo, Pool, yes or no?”

     Deadpool bats it out of his hand, knocking to the ground and halfway into a pool of water. “No mayo! And no botulism BLT either.”

     “What the hell! Do you know how much that cost??”

     “Far too fuckin’ much I’m sure, baby boy. Buuuuut not as much as these I bet!” Deadpool presents Spidey with the three bags of El Tako Nako he’d bought on his way over, swaying them in front of his face. “Oooooh, you want the tacos soooooo bad,” he croons in a mystical voice. Spidey glowers at him.

     “This does not count as me accepting handouts from you,” he says sternly and swipes one of the bags out of Deadpool’s hands. Wade grins. “This is just payback for fucking up my actual lunch.”

     “Of course, of course. I wouldn’t dream of trying to give you free food, that’s just wrong. Here, try one of the quesadillas. They’re to die for.” Spidey looks up from rifling through his pilfered bag and reaches for the quesadilla Wade’s offering. He freezes.

     “What is that.”

     “I told you, a chicken quesadilla. Best one on this side of the Appalach– AH!”

     Spidey lunges for the suit Wade has tucked into his belt but the merc dodges out of the way. “Ohhh, that that,” he says as he dances away. “Well, you see, I know you told me to burn it and everything but, like, I worked reaaaaally hard on getting all the details right and– Hey, no fair!”

     Wade’s foot is webbed to the roof and Spidey jumps for him. Wade shifts to take the impact to his side and lets the force of it rock him on his feet but doesn’t fall. Spidey’s strong but he’s also light, barely a buck ninety soaking wet; he can’t take Wade down with bodyweight alone, especially with one foot glued down.

     “Give me the goddamn suit!” Spidey shoots webbing at Wade’s free foot and yanks, taking them both down in a heavy tumble. They wrestle for a long moment but the fact of the matter is that Spider-Man is 10x stronger and Wade just isn’t trying that hard.

     Spidey gets him on his back [hah], straddled over Wade’s thighs with one hand pinning his arms and the other scrabbling for his belt [hah!]. Then he stops, just panting and staring at Wade’s crotch.

     “Cat got your tongue?” Wade asks blithely.

     Spidey looks up at him, teeth bared. “Fucking where?”

     “Mm, I dunno. I think you’re gonna have to strip search me, officer.” Wade punctuates his words with a roll of his hips that Spider-Man immediately puts a stop to by squeezing his thighs together so hard that Wade’s pelvic bone cracks. There’s that spider strength he was waiting for. Yummy.

     “I’m serious, Deadpool. How in the fuck did you manage to hide- Y’know what? Never mind. Give it to me!”

     “You want it that bad, Webs?”

     “Clearly!”

[HAH!!!]

     Wade leers and Spidey hisses out a breath. His neck is a lovely shade of pink. He pushes off of Deadpool and steps back, crossing his arms.

     “What’s it gonna take, Wade?” He spits, ignoring the innuendo entirely. [Boooooring] “Am I gonna have to beat it out of you?”

     “Well…”

     “Wade.”

     “Fine, fine! But if I tell you what I want in exchange for the suit, are you actually gonna do it? Cause I seem to recall the last time I asked you to do something, you webbed me to a roof and left me there.”

     Spidey scoffs. “You were fine. You didn’t even die.”

     “Exactly! I did exactly as you asked and what do I get? More demands with nothing in return. When is it my turn to demand things? What about what I want, huh?” It’s meant to be a stupid argument about a stupid situation but Spidey rounds on him. His expression is imperceptible through the mask, but his stare feels very intense.

[Erotic, some would say]

     “What, exactly, is it that you want, ’Pool?” Spider-Man asks lowly. Deadpool’s great at reading body language but his horny hindbrain is seriously messing with that skill right about now. He swallows.

     “A date.”

     The request rings out through the cool November air. Spidey stays just where he is, breath puffing out in little white clouds. After an agonizing few moments, he tips his head to the side. Calculating, like a mountain cat sizing up its prey. Deadpool suddenly feels very warm despite the cold.

     “A… date.” Spider-Man says slowly. He says the word like he’s rolling it around in his mouth, trying to decide if he likes the feel of it or not. If Deadpool weren’t so sure he’s hallucinating at least 60% of this interaction, he’d say Spidey sounds almost intrigued. In a tightly restrained sort of way, of course.

     “A date,” Deadpool confirms with a nod and far more confidence than he feels. “Could be whatever you want. Playing games at my apartment, throwing fries at pigeons in central park, Netflix and chi–”

     “What about dinner and a show?” Spidey interrupts. Deadpool pauses and Spidey gestures behind him. Deadpool turns around to see that the giant billboard across from them is replaying Spidey’s latest fight with the sinister six on a loop. J. Jonah Jameson’s voice blares from the tinny speakers, critiquing his moves and insisting that his son could have taken them down in half the time.

     Deadpool turns back around to find that Spidey has picked up the quesadilla he’d abandoned in order to tackle Deadpool to the ground. The bug gestures to the ground beside him, a challenging little smirk on his half-unmasked face. Oh, so that’s how it’s gonna be, huh? Spidey thinks he can just do what they always do and call it a date. Wait ‘til he learns Deadpool don’t play fair. No, he plays downright dirty.