Chapter Text
Wade kicked back in his chair, legs up, with not a care in the world. He had the Golden Girls all cued for a marathon, popcorn and beer at the ready, and he was more than willing to do nothing but munch and binge. The last week was a shitshow (mental note, actually VET the job next time), and he was due a break.
Who knew that mental exhaustion could still be a thing even with regenerative powers? Certainly not him.
Or maybe he just really didn’t like people right now. Flip a coin.
Anyway. He had beer, popcorn, and his favorite comfort show. Nothing could possibly go wrong—
Glass shattered as something crashed right through his front window. Something large, heavy and people-shaped sailed right into the apartment, past him, and crashed into the far wall before collapsing on the ground like a marionette with its strings cut. Alarm shot up his spine so fast, he damn near got jittery with it, and he left the couch without any conscious plan to do so.
Wade was all over that, skidding to his knees next to whoever had just come inside, checking first if the intruder was bad guy or victim.
Looked like a college kid with the backpack, jeans and white shirt. He was bleeding something badly along his arms and forehead, likely from crashing through the window. Bad guys normally wore something more menacing than a backpack full of textbooks, so he was going with victim here.
“Fucking shit, what auspiciously bad timing, seriously?!”
He threw himself back towards the window, looking out in all directions but he didn’t see any bad guys? No cause of alarm. People looked askance at his broken window, clearly wondering what happened, then shrugged and went on their way. New Yorkers for you. Pros at minding their own business.
Alright, it didn’t look like someone was hot on this kid’s heels, but what the hell had sent him through the window?
Wade doubled back, grabbing his cell phone as he did, and a towel to help with the whole bleeding thing. He rounded the table the kid had sailed over and found big brown eyes blinking up at him.
“Hey there, no cause for alarm, I’m choosing the side of light and goodness today. What happened? Can you tell me?”
A slow blink, like the kid was really groggy and had to think about it. Then those pretty lips—truly, kid was a looker, exactly Wade’s type if he had a type—opened. And were trying really hard to focus on Wade. Kinda not succeeding.
“Wade?”
“Uh, yeah, that’s me?” Wait a fucking second, he knew that voice. “Uh…call me crazy, a lot of people do, I don’t even take offense anymore, but…Spidey? That you?”
“Yeah.” He put a hand on the ground, as if trying to push himself up, only to flop.
“Shit, seriously?!”
Wade bent to put pressure on the head wound, sizing his friend up. He and Spiderman had teamed up lots of times in the past. Spidey was a good pal, a comedian buddy that Deadpool could depend on to have his back in either jokes or a fight. He’d never, ever, seen him without the mask on.
So what the hell happened, to catch Spiderman without his suit, and making him flop around like a beached whale on cocaine? Wade could only surmise it was trouble to a capital T. That skittering alarm from before was now lugging out alarm bells from storage. Been a while since Wade had seen those. Not a great sign.
Big brown eyes looked up at him, still struggling to focus, still failing. But the grip he got on Wade’s arm, that was ironclad. More reminiscent of the strength he knew Spiderman was capable of.
“Wade. Help.”
“I will absolutely help. I got you, I promise. Can you tell me who did this to you?”
A shake of the head. “Masks. Bad guys. Came out of nowhere. They shot…they shot some dart in me. I can’t…spidey senses going nuts.”
“That explains why you can’t focus, yeah, gotcha. Alright, I can get details from you later, let’s get you help now. Uh…hospital is—”
“No.”
“—probably a bad idea, got to agree. Um, how about Bruce Banner?”
“Yeah. Tell Bruce—” a wince, and his grip started to slacken “—all senses compromised, took effect in ten seconds. Dart’s in my pocket.”
“You got it. Sleep, Spidey, I’ll get you to Bruce in two shakes.”
Wade did pause long enough to slap some bandages on the worst of the cuts, but honestly, it was best Bruce do the actual treatment. He just didn’t want Spidey to bleed out while he whisked him away to Avengers Tower.
Then he wrapped him up in a throw blanket, mostly to cover his face, and raced out to the street. Wade managed to get a taxi in a minute flat, which honestly felt like an eternity. He wouldn’t be as worried about anyone else, horrible as that might sound, because his buddies tended to heal quickly. Spidey, though, had no regenerative powers. And it must take quite the cocktail to knock him out, which wasn’t good. Double that with bad guys probably still looking for him, and it was like walking around with a target. Wade hated that feeling with every fiber with his being. Mix that in with genuine worry for his buddy, and it was the beginning of a very bad night.
The cab ride to the tower felt like it dragged on for eons. Wade had never been this impatient in his life to reach a destination and the second they started pulling towards the curb, he threw a couple of twenties at the driver before launching himself out of the car’s backseat, hightailing it for the doors.
He saw security, ignored them, and got into an elevator as fast as he could manage it.
Only to then realize Captain America was in the elevator with him. The man had a takeout bag in his hand, phone in the other, and looked at Wade like he just knew the man was going to interrupt his whole night.
Wade completely understood the feeling.
“Deadpool? What’s that?”
“Spiderman,” Wade answered honestly. “He got attacked, crashed through my window about twenty minutes ago, I’m bringing him to Bruce, not that Bruce knows we’re coming, can you call and warn him?”
“Seriously?” Steve looked down at the blanket wrapped bundle but was already putting the specialized watch up to his mouth. “Call Banner.”
The phone went beep beep beep and then a tired voice answered.
“What, Steve?”
“You’ve got incoming,” Steve informed him, tone quick-smart. “Deadpool’s bringing an injured and unconscious Spiderman to you. We’re in the elevator.”
“Shit. What happened?!”
“That I do not know.” Steve looked pointedly at Wade.
Wade shrugged ignorance. “All he was able to tell me before passing out were bad guys jumped him. In civilian clothes, too, he’s not masked, hence the blanket, and I kinda feel bad about that, cause I saw his face, but anyway they hit him with some dart thing and it’s taken him right down. Bruce, he told me to tell you, the dart screwed with his senses which I believe because he went right through my window hard enough to knock into the opposite wall of my apartment, it took ten seconds to activate, and the dart is in his pocket.”
The elevator doors opened and at that point Wade had no idea where to go because he was not the type to need a medical bay. For obvious reasons.
Steve took over, guiding him all while Bruce talked.
“I’m glad he kept the dart, that should speed things along. Steve?”
“I’m showing him to you and then I’ll take Natasha and investigate. If we comb the area, hopefully we’ll find something about his attackers.”
“Get his aunt under protective custody.” The words popped out of his mouth before he really thought of it but shit, he really should have thought of that before.
Steve glanced back sharply over his shoulder. “Aunt?”
“It’s why he’s masked. Aunt’s the only family he’s got left. I don’t know where she lives, though.”
“I’ll get Tony down here. He and Jarvis can figure this out.”
Steve was just so reliable. No wonder everyone wanted him to lead a team. He knew how to make decisions and get people moving.
A door opened just ahead of them and Bruce took a step out, waving them impatiently inside. He did look a little tired, with dark circles under his eyes that could put pandas to shame, but he normally looked tired. Unless he was Hulking.
Wade zipped right inside, Steve coming in after him. This was obviously Bruce’s domain, as there were three hospital beds all lined neatly up against the wall, a table and kitchenette area on the far wall with lots of medical equipment, and a very worn in lazy boy chair lurking in the corners.
Steve grabbed wallet and phone out of Spidey’s pockets before zipping right back out again. Wade knew he was going to use both to figure out Spidey’s identity and the aunt’s address and let him go without a word.
Well, not exactly without a word.
He apologized even as he put Spidey down on the hospital bed Bruce pointed him to. “Sorry, Spidey, I know you don’t like the whole identity reveal thing but in this case, it’s a necessary evil. Your enemies know you, which means your allies need to know you, that makes sense, right?”
Bruce took the blanket off, tossing it aside, and then winced. “That’s a lot of glass cuts and Jesus, he looks barely eighteen. I really hope that’s a baby face.”
“I know, isn’t he just the cutest thing ever?”
Bruce ignored that and tossed Wade a bottle of alcohol and gauze. “Start cleaning out his cuts, I’m going to look at that head wound first.”
“Head wound isn’t serious, I don’t think, just a graze.”
Bruce looked it over, fingers carefully parting brown hair, frowning. “I think you’re right but it’s deep enough to need a stitch or two. Here, put pressure on it. You said dart was in his pocket?”
“Yeah.”
Bruce felt both from the outside, grunted in an ah-ha way, the fished it out of the right pocket. Wade winced when he saw the size of that thing.
“What did they use on him, an elephant gun?”
“It’s about the right size for it,” Bruce admitted grimly. He darted to the other side of the room, where a bunch of lab equipment was set up, and started doing things with lots of clinking noises.
Wade knew nothing about medicine except how to clean wounds and wrap them, so that’s what he did. Bruce could figure out the rest.
“Spidey, I don’t know if you were heading towards me on purpose, or if this was just an accident, but you’ve seriously made me so happy that you trust me so much.” He peeked on the head wound and it was slowing down some, which was good. Damn head wounds always bled like an abandoned sieve.
Bruce kept tinkering, so he went to bandaging up the other cuts on his forearms, which did mean taking the white shirt off too because there were glass shards and blood everywhere. Spidey, to his utter lack of surprise, was very well-built. Slimly muscular was likely the right phrase to use. Then again, he fought bad guys and slung his way around the city, so the physique made perfect sense.
Bruce came back to his side and bumped him out of the way in order to put two stitches on the head wound, then more gauze and wrapped it.
“You’re so professional at this,” Wade marveled. “Like you’re a doctor or something.”
“Wade, do you ever get tired of your own voice?”
“Hasn’t happened yet but I’ll let you know if it does.”
Bruce just sighed.
The door abruptly opened and Tony charged in. He looked fit to be tied, a little wide around the eyes, and he skittered to a stop at the foot of the bed, just looking at Spidey.
“Fucking H. Christ,” he breathed, staring at Spidey like he was otherworldly or something. “He’s a fucking kid. Ugh, this is why we should have vetted him to begin with, I’m kicking myself over here. Bruce, how is he?”
“Injury-wise, he’s okay, he’ll mend from this just fine. That cocktail he was shot with, though, that’s another case entirely. I need more time to study it but from the five minute look I had at it, it was very much designed to take him down.”
Anger washed over him. “Yeah. Which it did. It’s a miracle he got out of there and made it to me. Isn’t it.”
“Pretty much.” Bruce took his glasses off and rubbed at the bridge of his nose. “Tony, his aunt?”
“Cap and Hawkeye are already on their way to get her. Steve called before leaving, she was fine on the phone at least, so hopefully she stays that way until we can bring her here.” Tony’s eyes shot up to Wade’s and there was something unreadable about his expression for a moment. “You know who he is?”
“Uhhh no. No, nope, can’t say that I do. We’ve hung out some, it’s how he knew where I live, but I never asked his name or saw his face before today and I’m really hoping I made the right call letting you guys see his face, honestly, cause there’s a very good chance he’s going to be mad at me about that later but head wound and all, didn’t see a way around it.”
“There isn’t one, you made the right call,” Tony agreed. “And right now, we need his identity to figure out how he was discovered by someone else. Peter Parker, twenty years old, a college student with a 4.5 GPA majoring in biochemistry.”
Shiiiiit Spidey really was smart. Wade had always thought he was.
Bruce came back with one of those IV stands and two bags which he immediately strung up.
“IVs? Really?” Wade would have thought something else.
“Right now, the IVs will help flush this junk out of his system.” Bruce explained even as he swabbed the back of Spi—Peter’s hand. “I will draw some blood, though, to see how the drug is directly affecting him.”
“From this point on, no one that’s not an Avenger sees him,” Tony ordered. “We’ve already crossed a line seeing his face, let’s not make it worse. He wants to live a normal life when he’s not fighting, and that’s fine, that’s up to him. Wade. You stand guard until I can get someone to swap with you.”
Wade plonked himself down on the foot of the bed immediately, arms crossing over his chest.
“I’m not moving until Spidey opens his eyes. He’s my buddy.”
Tony gave him an odd look and then sighed, shaking his head. “You are loyal. Batshit crazy but loyal.”
“That last part was unnecessary. True, but unnecessary.”
“Alright, up to you, let me know if you need a break though. I’ve got an unexpected guest incoming, so I’m going to go settle that. Jarvis is already sweeping through the news channels and social media to see if anyone spotted something.”
Wade lifted his face towards the ceiling. “Jarvis, you’re the man!”
A very British, posh male voice responded, “I appreciate the sentiment, Mr. Wilson.”
Tony took himself back out. Which left Wade with an unconscious Spidey and a very busy Bruce and not much to do.
Well. He could sit here and admire the beauty that was Spiderman. No hardship on his part.
College student, really? Wait, but he and Spidey had been fighting side by side for years. In fact it had to be at least three…no wait, that one thing happened after he met Spidey, so that made it five years. Shit. He’d been fighting alongside a fucking fifteen year old?! Who had not only kept up but saved Wade’s ass a few times.
Damn. Wade sat with this revelation for a few seconds.
Then wished strongly for his beer, now warm while sitting on the coffee table. With a revelation like this, alcohol was called for.
He and Spidey were going to have a very long talk when the kid woke up.