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Peter's already having a pretty shitty week when New York becomes infested with killer robots. They don't look like much (they honestly kind of reminded Peter of a cross between Sputnik and one of those silly iPod robot dogs that were popular back in the late 2000s) but that was before he watched them sprout extra robotic arms and tear a metal park bench in half.
So, yeah. The week started with the most asinine assignment from Jameson (a comprehensive photo compilation of the last 100 mayoral races of New York? Just the thought of that spread was giving Peter a headache, let alone trying to think of anyone who would be interested in it), the most pathetic excuses for term papers that he's seen in a while from his undergrads, and a few trips through the sewers to curb Dr. Connor's new project (and the killer robots seem tame compared to the radioactive poop fish swimming underneath New York that Connor was cooking up…thank god he was able to get Johnny on board to nip that one in the bud).
"It's not even Friday!" Peter yells in frustration as he webs another pair of robots together, holding out a hand to the civilian he just saved from a razor sharp dismemberment. She doesn't hesitate to grab on, and he grips her forearm as he swings her gently to safety. She might say thanks, but Peter's already hurrying back to where a mob of them are swarming a building that Hawkeye told him currently holds the entire block's population of businessmen. It had been identified as the best shelter at the time, but that was before the robots revealed their surprise feature: drills. Peter really isn't sure who came up with these things, but his begrudging admiration at their ingenuity is quickly catching up to his exasperation. Then he sort of hates himself for being so easily impressed by evil plots. Eh, whatever. Scientific admiration and all that.
"Good work," someone tells him as he takes out a few of the robots with his new acid webs (patent pending a better name), and he turns to see Captain America as he bashes one of the bots with his shield. It breaks to smaller pieces but still tries to keep drilling until Cap smashes its control panel under his boot. It makes a sad whirring noise as it dies a quick mechanical death.
"I don't have a fancy earpiece, so is the plan to keep smashing?" Peter eyes the sea of robots warily. They're not super big, but they're plentiful, and if they want to keep casualties and the possibility of a perimeter breach to a minimum, they need to figure something else out.
Cap throws his shield again, and Peter takes that as his cue to spray some more acid. The robots go down in a sizzling heap. "We think we've found where they're being controlled," Cap says, reaching up to snatch his shield from the air. "We have SHIELD agents working to get into the building, both physically and virtually."
Peter eyes the robots more carefully. "You mean they're being remotely controlled?"
"Satellite," Cap confirms. "If we knock out the signal, we knock them out."
"Huh," Peter nods. "Cool, put me on that team."
The blonde man shakes his head, pausing in his robot smashing to actually turn to Peter. "It's extremely dangerous, Spider-Man. It seems that whoever's behind this created more than just these robots. They have other ones guarding the control tower, and those are much more skilled at killing."
So these guys out here aren't the killer robots. "Then what are these ones here for?"
Cap frowns. "Infiltration, we think."
Peter nods again. At this point it doesn’t really matter what they're here for. They just need to make sure to evacuate the civilians that they can and save the rest from any collateral damage the robots may cause. "So SHIELD took over the signal-killing team?"
"Yes."
There's something about the way Captain America says it that makes Peter pause his robot dissolving and look towards him, and the expression on his face makes Peter's ah-fuck senses tingle (not to be confused with spidey senses. Ah fuck senses are built completely from personal experience rather than radioactive spider bites). Because sweeter-than-apple-pie Steve Rogers looks guilty, and that never means anything good. Usually, it means that the rest of the Avengers bullied him into voting on a matter that he doesn't think has a winner to it.
Before Peter can open his mouth and ask, the bots all pause, then start scuttling over towards a building that Peter belatedly recognizes as the one that hosts one of his favorite coffee shops on its first floor.
“Is that the building the signal was coming from?” He asks miserably, and can’t stop himself from holding his head in his hands when Steve nods. “Where am I supposed to get a decent oolong and americano in the same place now?” He feels a hand patting his back awkwardly, and he heaves a sigh before rallying admirably. He can hear Cap’s earpiece buzzing, so he waits and watches Steve react to the message with a grimace. He nods once.
“Affirmative. I have Spider-Man with me. Where do you want him?” More buzzing. Cap turns to him. “We’re making our way to the entrance. They think it’s a group, and if our team is able to get into the tower we’ll need more people to be able to apprehend. Your webbing would be helpful, if you’d like to join us? We have some others on civilian evac.”
Peter holds an arm out in a sweeping motion. “Lead the way, Mr. America.”
Cap rolls his eyes but claps Peter’s shoulder good naturedly before jogging towards the building. Peter follows, shooting acidic webs at straggling robots as they go. Once he’s satisfied that he’s used up most of his specialty webbing, he puts the cartridges away and swaps them with his normal patrol webbing. Perfect for swinging, creating traps, and apprehending criminals.
They’re still about half a block away from the lobby of the building (all of its windows are shattered and Peter mourns his post-class oolong) when all of the robots crowding around the building freeze in place, then drop as one to the ground. Peter and Cap exchange looks before picking up the pace, running towards the building.
“Are we clear?” Cap is asking into his comm, though they don’t wait for a response as they enter through the broken front windows, glass crunching beneath their shoes. There’s an emergency stairwell that leads to the business offices in the five floors above the coffee shop, and they waste no time scaling them. The higher they climb, the more blood smears the stairwell, unfamiliar robots littering the steps. Peter can’t help but notice that the robots are ripped apart haphazardly, puncture marks around their control panels in the center of their strange-looking bodies. There are also bullet holes peppering the walls of the stairwell, and those coupled with all of the blood gives Peter a sick feeling in his stomach.
“You said SHIELD agents were taking care of this part?” Peter asks, actually swallowing bile when he sees what he thinks is brain matter on the wall, splattered with blood. There are no bodies on the ground, but that doesn’t mean that the robots didn’t carry them off or they weren’t dragged onto any of the office floors.
Cap follows his gaze and huffs a little. “Well. Not exactly?”
Peter’s about to ask him what he’s talking about when Cap suddenly veers towards the door to the sixth floor office, almost at the top of the building, and bursts into the office.
It’s a bloodbath, one that has Peter’s mouth going dry. There’s no way anyone survived this much blood loss. There’s no way multiple someones survived this much blood loss.
Iron Man, Hawkeye, a few SHIELD agents, and Wasp in her human-sized form all stand in the room. Hawkeye has someone at the tip of his arrow, and a few others are being handcuffed. From the left, Peter sees someone book it towards the stairwell, and he shoots a web at their legs. They trip and land with a loud crash, signalling their entrance, and Cap wastes no time cuffing them with help from a SHIELD agent.
“What happened in here?” Peter asks, still feeling a little breathless from the sheer destruction. The room obviously used to be a lobby of some sort, but the collection of gore and robot parts have rendered it little more than a crime scene.
Iron Man reveals his face in the suit as he turns to them. “You let him up here?” Tony‘s tone takes Peter aback before he realizes that it’s not directed at him. Then it takes him aback all over again when he realizes it’s about him instead.
Steve is back to looking uncomfortable-guilty-righteous. “I thought it was for the best. Where is he?”
Tony snorts. “Where isn’t he, is the real question.”
“Iron Man,” Wasp scolds, but she turns back to the SHIELD agents immediately after, apparently wanting nothing to do with it. Hawkeye seems to be focusing on something on the side of the lobby furthest from the elevators, and Peter. Well. Peter isn’t an idiot. He looks between Tony and Steve, his vision tunneling.
“You didn’t.” The looks on their faces immediately tell him everything he needs to know. “No, of course you did. You knew their base was surrounded by literal murder bots, and you thought, We know a guy who can get murdered!” Peter can’t see straight. He can barely think, he’s so angry. “Well screw you,” he spits, Queens accent on full display. He couldn’t care a single bit. He feels like a caged animal in this lobby with his friend’s murderers, but he can’t leave Deadpool behind. Not like this. He stalks towards where Hawkeye seems to be.
“He can’t die!” Tony squawks, and Peter spins on his heel and jabs an aggressive finger towards him.
“Yes, he can! And he did! Multiple times over!” Peter throws his hands out, gesturing towards the room. “You don’t think it’s scary? You don’t think it’s painful? Sure, he wakes up. But he dies a terrible, awful, pain-filled death every single time. He feels the life fade from him, he experiences pain, he greets Death. And you say that it doesn’t matter because he can’t stay dead. Fuck you. He’s just as deserving of a dignified death as anyone else. And fuck you all for taking advantage of him like that. You know he’ll do what’s needed to stay in your good graces. You know that he’ll come back, and so you get him to do your dirty work instead of figuring out how to do things the right way. And you call yourselves heroes.”
“Who knows how many lives we saved through Deadpool’s sacrifice,” Wasp finally turns away from the SHIELD agent, though Peter honestly can’t see anyone who isn’t openly watching his tantrum. “He got the job done quickly. It was worth it for his efficiency.”
Peter waves his hands around, unsure of what to do with this unspent frustration. “That’s not enough!” The words come out like a sob. “Can’t you see that your reasoning isn’t enough? Would it be worth it to send Hawkeye in if you knew it was a suicide mission? Just because Wade doesn’t stay dead doesn’t mean he can’t die. And you all treat him like he’s a lamb to the slaughter, not like a person. He’s human, too.” Peter’s mask feels too hot for his face, soupy and swampy, and he realizes that he’s crying. Well, his friend just died, he feels entitled to a little cry sesh. He turns without another word and continues to where Wade hopefully is.
And he’s right. Hawkeye isn’t standing directly over him, but he’s close, and once Peter reaches him he sees Deadpool — yes, in pieces — on the white carpet of the lobby. Peter chokes on a quiet sob. Deadpool might not be able to stay dead, but it’s still like a bullet in the chest to see him like this. It always feels permanent, even if it never is.
Peter shoulders past Hawkeye and begins the gruesome job of gathering Wade’s parts, his breaths audibly hitching as he leans down to grab another finger or forearm. He arranges them around Wade’s torso, still decked out in the Deadpool suit but torn beyond repair. He can feel the eyes of the Avengers and SHIELD agents as they watch him, but he honestly can’t bring himself to care. Let them watch. Let them intrude on Peter’s one-man funeral. He hopes they sincerely screw themselves.
He sits next to Deadpool’s body once he thinks he’s found most of the stray pieces, hugging his knees to his chest. He’s a grown adult with tenure and a 401k, but he always feels like the child in front of the gas station, watching his uncle bleed out in front of him, when he waits for Wade to start breathing again. His eyes are so focused on Wade’s chest that he doesn’t hear Hawkeye until he’s directly in front of him, holding out a handkerchief. His eyes are soft, kind, and Peter takes the cloth, though he doesn’t acknowledge the action. He knows that Hawkeye has a soft spot for Deadpool, but Peter’s not happy with any of the Avengers right now. He rolls his mask up to the bridge of his nose and blows, wiping at his cheeks and nose with the handkerchief before balling it back up and clutching it in his bloody fist.
Peter wants to yell at them some more, he wants them to go away, he wants them to witness his grief. He keeps his mask halfway rolled up because it's easier to breathe through his miserable sniffles and too-hot breath. He watches as Wade slowly begins to knit himself together. He wants Wade to wake up, but he's also glad that Wade isn't awake to feel this part of the healing.
After about ten minutes of watching to make sure Wade really is healing and won't stay dead, he pulls his phone out from where it's webbed to his thigh and opens up the website for their favorite brunch place, quickly tapping in an order for pickup in about an hour. He figures Wade will be semi-mobile by then, and they can limp off to one of his safehouses and enjoy refueling on waffles and french toast together. He webs his phone back to where it was and returns to his silent vigil, pressing his eyes into his knees. At some point, someone sets a bottle of water down next to him, and he faintly listens to the sounds of the robots being carted out of the office lobby, but he doesn't want to give anyone an opening to talk to him, so he doesn't look up.
Finally, he hears the crackly, wet sounds of someone trying to breathe with a truly impressive amount of blood in their lungs, and he's quick to help Wade roll onto his side as he coughs up the drying, congealed blood, the man weak and wheezing. Peter runs a hand up and down Wade's back as he kneels over him, and after a few minutes the coughs subside and Peter rolls Wade back over onto his back. Through his split mask, Peter can make out a weak smile. "Hiya, Baby Boy. Your sunshiny face is a mighty good sight to wake up to."
His voice is thin and tired, but Peter can hear the genuine relief in it, and it makes him tear up all over again. It always upsets him when he thinks about how many times Wade has had to wake up alone after dying, his so-called teammates leaving him to reanimate on active battlefields, in car trunks, with body parts strewn all over the place. How many times he just had to sit and wait it out by himself, nobody to wait with or care how long it took him to come back because he always did eventually? It makes him want to hold Deadpool tight, hug him until he doesn't feel pain anymore, scream at the world for being so unfair and unkind to the strangely-shaped pieces that didn't quite fit in it.
"Hi, Wade," he says instead, voice raw and wet, and Wade is quick to lift a shaking hand to Peter's masked face.
"Oh no," he says, impossibly soft, "please don't cry. Is this because Lady Gaga hasn't released a new queer anthem in decades?"
"Born This Way is definitely not her only queer anthem," Peter fires back, snorting a laugh and making a bit of snot stream from his nose. Deadpool, because he's Deadpool, just wipes it away with the newly-attached thumb of his suited-up hand without batting an eye.
He sighs, the weight of the world implied. "They don't make music like they did in 2011 anymore."
"Probably because 2011 was over a decade ago."
"Gasp! Don't point out the passage of time so rudely! Are you calling me old?"
"Wade."
"You're right, I am kind of getting up there. But you're no spring chicken either, baby boy. I bet you can't even name five of the Billboard Top Ten artists."
"Wade."
"Quick! Tell me what sigma means!”
Peter blinks. "Okay, moving past the fact that sigma is so five years ago, Wade, please." The please always does it, and Wade calms down, his index finger lightly rubbing Peter's cheekbone. He had kind of forgotten that Wade was still holding his face. And wiping his nose. Ugh, he really hopes they don't have the audience that he thinks they have.
"Sorry, sweetheart," his voice is nearly a whisper. Apparently, he's tuned into how many people are around as well. "Are you upset over me, or something else? Because I'm right here. You don't gotta worry 'bout a thing, sugar ring." Peter decides to be a bigger person and move past the nonsensical rhyme without comment. It'll be a nightmare getting them back on topic otherwise.
"You died, Wade. Just because you come back doesn't mean I don't grieve you every time."
Wade stills, his hand dropping as he studies Peter's half-visible face. He's not sure what the mercenary sees there, but it makes Wade turn slightly away. "I'm sorry," he says again. He's always been quick to accept blame and beg for forgiveness, like he thinks Peter will leave him over every small infraction. It's just another knee-jerk habit ingrained in him that cuts Peter all the way to the bone.
"What are you sorry for?" He prompts, tone a bit chiding.
Wade swallows, chokes slightly, and spends a few minutes hacking up some more blood. Peter is quick to hoist him into a more upright position, one arm curled around his shoulders and the other planted firmly on his chest to keep him sitting as he doubles over with the force of his coughs.
When he finishes, Peter hands him the handkerchief that he forgot he had, and Wade wipes at his partly-exposed mouth with it, smearing it with more blood. Hopefully Hawkeye didn't expect to get this thing back. Cold water does wonders, not miracles.
"Gross," he observes, sniffing slightly before clearing his nose into the handkerchief like Peter had not that long ago. It makes Peter chuckle a little fondly, pulling Wade towards his chest and leaning his head against the top of Wade's.
"We really are just a disgustingly domestic couple," Peter hums.
"So does that mean this is when I beg forgiveness so that I don't end up in the doghouse?" Wade asks in a silly, hopeful voice.
Peter sighs. "I don't need you to ask forgiveness, Wade. I appreciate the apology, but I want to know what you're actually sorry for. Do you know why I'm so upset?"
Wade is quiet, but Peter can tell that it's because he's thinking. He gives him the time. The man did just come back to life, after all. "You don't like it when I die," Wade finally says.
"You didn't even tell me that you were going to be here," Peter counters, and hates how small he sounds. It's true: he had checked all of their messaging apps when he ordered food, and the last message he had gotten from Wade had been a meme over instagram. Nothing about fighting murder robots. "And then you agreed to go on a suicide mission because suicide doesn't stick for you. It was unfair to you for SHIELD to ask you to do it, and it was unfair to me for you to accept. You're not the only one that you hurt when this happens. Not anymore."
Wade is completely silent for a moment, and then Peter hears the scrape of a ragged inhale before he presses himself further into Peter's chest. "I know. I'm sorry I keep forgetting that. I'm sorry I hurt you."
"And 'I'm sorry I hurt myself.' Say it."
"And I'm sorry I hurt myself," he parrots dutifully. He's quiet for a moment. "I'm also sorry I couldn't figure out how to program the robots to blast "Never Gonna Give You Up" before they all shut down. I wasted like thirty whole seconds trying to do it."
Peter pulls back slightly at that, shaking his head incredulously. "What are you talking about? The robots didn't even have speakers. How could they have played music? Also, is that why you keep that mp3 on your pocket flashdrive?"
As if summoned, Wade holds up the plastic-wrapped drive. "I've always got that thang on me. Rick Astley stays on speed dial. Or whatever the ready-to-download version of that saying is."
"That definitely doesn't exist."
"Ooooh, that means we get to make it up!”
"How about before we do that, we swing by Joanna's and pick up the honestly ridiculous amount of food that I ordered for us?"
Wade gasps. "Baby boy, you are perfect for me. Never go bald."
"That is definitely not how that saying goes. Also, hypocritical coming from the hairless man in our relationship."
"What, you trying to encroach on my brand? There's only room for one DP, sweet pea."
Peter laughs, beginning the process of standing up. It's not too difficult to hoist Wade upright and sling his arm over Peter's shoulders, and Wade only seems to be sort-of limping, which means his disembodied parts are mostly bodied again. "Believe me, I am well aware." It'll be a free show for the city of New York to see Spider-Man and Deadpool limping down the street with three bags of takeout, but it probably won't even be in the top fifty strangest things they've seen on a Thursday. They'll go home and get cleaned up, enjoy their food, and maybe talk some more. Cry some more. Heal some more. And the next time the world knocks them down again, they'll be ready for it.