Chapter Text
Sirens scream somewhere behind them—too close, too many, harmonizing like the city itself has decided they’re a bad idea.
“WHY are they chasing us?! We literally just teamed up, what went wrong?” Spider-Man yelps, vaulting a fence and nearly eating pavement on the landing.
“Because,” Wade pants cheerfully, bursting forward like this is cardio and not a felony, “the police are deeply anti-fun.”
Matt keeps pace without seeming to try, breath steady, stride economical. “They’re chasing us because you stole a raccoon.”
“I liberated a raccoon,” Wade corrects, swerving around a trash can. “It was emotionally neglected.”
Peter risks a glance over his shoulder. Red and blue lights bloom at the end of the block. “You said it was yours!”
“I said it felt like mine,” Wade says. “Very different legally. Spiritually airtight.”
“This,” Matt says flatly, ducking under a fire escape without breaking stride, “is why I don’t work with other people.”
Wade twists mid-run to grin at him. “Oh my god, he’s doing the thing. The broody loner monologue. Do you practice that in the mirror, or is it just muscle memory?”
“I work alone because it minimizes collateral damage.”
“Counterpoint!” Wade shouts, skidding toward a parked car. “Look how bonded we are right now!”
Peter’s voice pitches higher as they close the distance. “Is that— is that the getaway car?!”
Wade slams a hand on the hood. “Calling it a ‘getaway car’ assumes it’s ours. Let’s call it a possibility.”
Matt’s head tilts, listening. “The engine is running.”
Wade hits it at a sprint and launches himself inside—shotgun, obviously—slamming the door hard enough to make the mirrors shudder. He immediately starts mashing buttons on the dashboard.
“Okay,” he says, as static screams from the radio, “if I can just find the one station that only plays early-2000s breakup songs, we will survive this.”
The engine being on raises several questions.
Wade answers none of them.
Matt slides into the car with the calm of a man who has never once been late to his own funeral. He doesn’t flinch at the noise or the smell of burning rubber; just settles automatically into the nearest open seat, seatbelt clicking into place out of habit.
He exhales once, slow and measured.
Spider-Man lands in the back seat in a tangle of red and blue, boots thudding against the floorboard, breath loud inside the mask. The suit creaks faintly as he braces himself, fingers sticking briefly to the upholstery.
“Um. Mr. Daredevil, sir?” Peter asks, quiet and careful. “Are you okay? Because you’re… sitting there. And not touching the wheel.”
Matt pauses.
Reaches forward.
Finds the steering wheel. His other hand settles on the door.
“I’m in the front seat,” he says.
Wade laughs out loud. “No. No, you are not.”
He cranes around in his seat, stares at Matt, then at the windshield. “You’re kidding me, right? You just wandered into the driver’s seat like it was a suggestion.”
“Okay,” Peter says quickly, panic creeping in. “Okay, okay. I can—I mean, I can drive. If—if you need me to.”
“Nope,” Wade says instantly.
Spidey freezes, lenses widening. “What?”
Wade leans back across the seat, pointing at him like he’s presenting evidence to a jury. “Absolutely not. You have big ‘this is my first team-up’ energy. Also, you smell like youth.”
“I do not smell like—”
“Like hope,” Wade finishes. “And possibly a GPA. Definitely Axe. But that might just be residual Stark on the suit.”
“I’m legal,” Spider-Man protests.
Matt’s head snaps up, expression sharpening beneath the calm.
“…You’re what.”
“If you have to clarify that you’re legal,” Wade says, nodding sagely, “that’s the FBI’s cue to start a folder. I don’t make the rules. I violate them aggressively and then blame the genre.”
Spider-Man tightens his grip on the wheel. The leather creaks. “I can drive!”
There’s a beat.
Wade glances sideways.
Then forward.
Then back at Matt.
“…Huh.”
He peels at the edge of something with a gloved finger. “…Why,” he asks slowly, reverently, “does this car still have the plastic on the seats.”
A siren swells behind them, close enough now to vibrate through the doors, through the glass, through Peter’s ribs. The engine hiccups, idling rough, heat bleeding up from the hood in little shimmers that warp the streetlights.
Matt exhales slowly through his nose.
“Wade.”
“Buddy,” Wade says, patting the dashboard like it’s a nervous animal, “this is either a rental or a cry for help, and I am emotionally invested in finding out which.”
The sirens multiply, overlapping, echoing off brick and concrete until it sounds like the city itself is clearing its throat for something dramatic. Somewhere behind them, someone shouts. Somewhere closer, something breaks.
Matt straightens, voice smooth, calm, perfectly reasonable—the tone people use right before they suggest arson or a timeshare.
“If we’re worried about Spider-Man driving,” he says, “I can drive. I’m already in the front seat.”
Wade stares at him.
Peter leans forward from the back seat, hope cracking through the panic. “You—you want to?”
“Hold on,” Wade says slowly, carefully, like he’s trying not to spook a wild animal. “Are you… can you drive?”
“Yes,” Matt says.
Peter slumps back against the seat, breath fogging the inside of his mask. “Oh thank god.”
Wade does not share this relief.
“Let me rephrase that,” Wade continues, ignoring him. “Are you allowed allowed.”
“…Define allowed.”
Wade squints.
Leans back.
Leans forward again.
Squints harder, like maybe the answer will appear if he changes angles or blinks in Morse code.
“Follow-up question,” Wade says. “How many fingers am I holding up.”
Matt doesn’t pause. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“That,” Wade says sharply, pointing at him, “is not an answer. That is a lawyer’s answer. That is a dodge. A narrative swerve. An answer with an answer. A red flag wearing sunglasses and insisting everything is fine.”
Matt’s jaw tightens—just a fraction.
He gestures vaguely at Matt’s face. “You do know your mask’s eye holes are less ‘windows’ and more ‘decorative doors,’ right?”
Peter makes a small, distressed noise in the back seat. “Uh. Just—just so everyone knows. I can drive. I have a learner’s permit.”
Wade screams internally. Externally, he whispers, “Why are you a literal child? And why is the child the backup plan.”
The car rocks as something explodes nearby—close enough that the shockwave thumps through the chassis, rattles the loose change in the cupholder, and vibrates straight up Peter’s spine. The windows shudder. Dust rains down from somewhere above, settling in his hair and crawling down the back of his neck. The smell of scorched asphalt and burning rubber fills the cabin.
Not close enough to kill them.
Close enough to feel personal.
Peter yelps, voice pitched high inside the mask. “We need to GO—now—like, right this instant—”
“I KNOW!” Wade shrieks, throwing both hands into the air. “I JUST DON’T WANT TO DIE IN A WAY THAT REQUIRES A VERY CONFUSING POLICE REPORT, A WITNESS STATEMENT, AND AN ANIMATED POWERPOINT PRESENTATION!”
Matt’s mouth twitches. Barely. “Wade.”
“No!” Wade barks, jabbing a finger like a tiny sword at him. “I’m not saying you can’t drive. I’m just saying—if you can, I need: several diagrams, a peer-reviewed study, and possibly a TED Talk with interpretive dance.”
Another siren cuts closer, loud enough to rattle the mirrors, drums of bass pounding through the floorboards. The engine revs, impatient, shivering through the body of the car as if it wants to bolt without them.
“Fine!” Wade snaps, unbuckling with the grace of a caffeinated tornado. “I’ll drive!”
“No!” Peter and Matt shout together.
Wade freezes mid-motion. Slowly, he turns his head. “That sounded rehearsed.”
Matt reaches forward and places a hand on Wade’s shoulder. Gentle. Firm. Absolutely final. “Absolutely not.”
Wade looks wounded. Beat. “Wow. Ableist.”
Matt pauses. “…What.”
Peter glances between them, eyes wide behind his lenses. “Why would that be—”
“BECAUSE!” Wade bellows, vaulting over the center console like a caffeinated raccoon possessed by every bad decision ever made, shoving Matt into the back seat.
Peter yelps as Daredevil lands beside him, knee knocking into his own, the back seat suddenly much too small for two vigilantes and a bad idea.
“I AM THE ONLY ONE HERE WITH A FULL, UNRESTRICTED, COURT-ORDERED LICENSE TO CAUSE PROBLEMS!”
“You do not have a license,” Matt says evenly, hands gripping the seat like a lawyer bracing for litigation, voice flat, precise.
Wade lands in the driver’s seat, slams the door, and flashes a grin that is pure teeth and chaos. “Counterpoint: I have confidence.”
Peter squeaks, a sound halfway between terror and disgust, as Wade floors it.
The car launches. Peter’s seatbelt bites hard into his shoulder, like it’s trying to keep his soul inside his body. Wind tears through the cracked windows, whipping hair into faces and sending stale coffee cups spinning like tiny satellites. Streetlights smear past, long glowing streaks, blinding flashes of yellow and white.
Matt grips the seat with white-knuckled precision. “…We’re going to die.”
“Nope!” Wade chirps gleefully, barreling through a red light. “Statistically improbable. Narratively inconvenient.”
Peter clutches the door with every ounce of teenage muscle. “MY AUNT IS GOING TO KILL ME—”
Wade gasps like he’s just discovered a new horror species. “Oh my god. Why are you a literal child?”
“I am not a child!” Peter snaps, voice cracking.
“You weren't even alive when Harry Potter first went to theaters,” Wade says instantly.
“…Maybe,” Peter admits, voice trembling, sweat prickling through the mask.
Wade cackles, yanking the wheel hard around a corner they absolutely should not have survived. The car groans, tires shrieking, metal protesting.
Matt braces just in time to keep Peter from being flung into the door, a steadying hand catching his shoulder as the back seat lurches violently.
“Amazing,” Wade declares, eyes glittering feral joy. “Love this team. Ten out of ten. No notes.”
Matt exhales slowly through his nose, calm as a guillotine blade. “We are not a team.”
“Spoilsport.”
“Pull over.”
“Can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Because if I stop driving,” Wade says cheerfully, “one of you will ask why I was allowed to drive in the first place.”
Peter swallows hard, voice small and panicked. “Why were you—”
Wade slams the accelerator, engine screaming. “AND THAT’S TIME! WELCOME TO TEAM RED, BOYS!”
Matt rolls his eyes. “We are not a team.”
The car tears down the street, chased by sirens, poor decisions, and the creeping, nauseating realization that none of this was ever properly discussed.
The speedometer needles past seventy.
In a thirty.
In a school zone.
At night.
Streetlights strobe past in blinding flashes, painting the asphalt in flickering stripes of orange and white. Tires scream every time Wade takes a corner, as if the laws of physics personally insulted him.
Wade drives with one hand on the wheel, the other clutching a chimichanga that absolutely did not exist thirty seconds ago. Grease slicks the console. He does not notice. He does not care.
“Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Feral Olympics,” Wade narrates mid-swerve. “Event one: suburban mayhem. Event two: terrified minor screaming in the backseat. Event three: law-abiding blind guy silently judging everything.”
Matt sits low in the back, one hand locked on the frame, jaw set like a man filing legal action against the universe.
Peter’s hands cling to the door, whimpering.
Wade glances in the rearview. “Ah yes, the classic ‘internal screaming while suspended by a seatbelt’ technique. Very effective. Used in 82% of all minor panic scenarios.”
The car swerves violently, tires shrieking, smell of burning rubber flooding the cabin.
“Eyes on the road!” Peter yelps.
Matt grips the seat harder, knuckles whitening. “Wade.”
“Yes, my seeing-eye lawyer?”
“Stop narrating.”
“Can’t,” Wade says cheerfully, taking a hand off the wheel to gesture wildly. “It’s a coping mechanism. I stop and the voices start. You don’t want the voices to start.”
The sirens spike in volume as a police cruiser slides into the rearview mirror, lights strobing red and blue across the interior. The sound drills straight into Peter’s skull.
Peter squeaks. “Oh no. Oh no no no. I can’t get arrested. My aunt will kill me. She will resurrect me just to kill me again.”
Wade beams at him in the mirror, feral grin stretching impossibly wide. “See? Stakes. Consequences. Emotional investment. Love that for us.”
The cruiser gets closer, engine snarling, tires eating the asphalt like it has a vendetta.
Matt closes his eyes. Calm. Controlled. Deadly. “Wade.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“You are going to cause serious harm.”
Wade tilts his head, crumbs scattering across the console with the motion. “Define ‘serious.’”
The car hits a pothole and Peter’s brain briefly convinces him this is how people die. Loose coins vault into the air. He screams, nails digging into the door like he can anchor himself to reality.
Matt exhales, slow and furious. “I am not kidding.”
Wade’s expression sharpens into something Matt does not like. If he could see it. “Neither am I. That’s the fun part.”
Peter squeezes his eyes shut, mind spinning. “I should be doing my physics homework right now. Physics.”
The tires scream again. Metal groans. The car smells faintly of grease, sweat, and impending doom.
Wade laughs like he’s just been personally challenged by the concept of consequences. “Physics? We are rewriting the rules of existence, kid. Practical applications!”
Matt exhales, slow, measured, a man who sounds like he’s delivering a verdict instead of breathing. “Stop.”
“No. Because then I’d have to explain why the blind guy can’t drive, why the teenager shouldn’t, and why I’m technically wanted in seven jurisdictions and emotionally wanted in none.”
Peter’s head snaps side to side like he’s scanning for exits. “…Wait. Blind?”
Matt freezes.
The silence stretches, stretching, stretching—like taffy being pulled by the hands of doom.
Wade cranes his head around, chin wobbling. “Ohhh. We weren’t telling people that yet?”
“You’re blind?” Peter squawks, voice high and cracking. “Like—legally?”
Matt closes his eyes. Calm. Deadly. “Yes.”
Wade nods sagely, one greasy finger resting on the console. “Illegally, he’s very judgmental.”
Peter flails, limbs folding over themselves like origami in a hurricane. “WHY ARE YOU CALM ABOUT THIS?!”
“I might be used to my own blindness by now,” Matt says evenly, tone flat, as though he’s commenting on the weather.
Peter flails harder, squeaking. “THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEANT!”
Matt shrugs. “Panic raises your heart rate, which makes Wade drive worse.”
“I resent that,” Wade says gleefully, steering with one hand, chimichanga balanced in the other, drifting around a corner that absolutely shouldn’t exist, wheels shrieking, the car groaning like it’s crying for help.
Something explodes behind them. Again. The smell of smoke drifts in through the cracked windows. The sound bounces off the dashboard. Tires squeal. No one comments. It’s background noise now.
Peter gulps, eyes wide behind the lenses. “So—so you knew you were blind.”
“Yes.”
“And you were going to drive anyways.”
“Yes.”
Peter stares at Matt, blinking like his brain is buffering. “…Are you also insane?”
Matt gives a thin, unimpressed smile, like he’s filing this moment for legal documentation. “I fight crime in red leather and rely on echolocation. You tell me.”
Wade gasps, mouth falling open, eyes glittering feral. “OH MY GOD. YOU’RE A BAT.”
“I am not—”
“BAT MAN ADJACENT!” Wade interrupts, spinning the wheel a little just to make it look dangerous.
“I am a lawyer,” Matt says evenly.
“That’s worse,” Wade concludes, tossing the chimichanga in the air and catching it, one hand still steering, teeth flashing feral delight.
Matt just grips the seat, white-knuckled, deadpan, letting the world burn around him. Peter flails somewhere between the seat and the air, trapped in his own personal sensory apocalypse.
Wade taps the brake, then immediately slams the gas.
“Okay! New plan,” Wade announces. “We split up.”
“We are in a car,” Peter cries, voice cracking, fingers digging into the seat like he’s trying to hold onto reality itself.
“Details,” Wade shouts over the roar of the engine, chimichanga crumbs spilling from his lap and bouncing across the console.
Matt leans forward, calm and measured, hands gripping the seat like a gavel poised to strike.
“Wade.”
“Yes,” Wade says brightly, glancing in the mirror. “My favorite moral compass with no north.”
“If you crash this vehicle—” Matt begins.
“—which I will—” Wade cuts in.
“—I will sue you,” Matt finishes, tone flat and absolute.
Wade pauses, genuinely considering this. “…You can do that?”
“Yes,” Matt says.
“Even if I die?”
“Yes.” Matt hesitates, head tilting slightly. “…Can you die?”
Wade tilts his head, chewing on the question like it’s a snack. Then he nods. “Fair.”
He slams a button on the dashboard. The car launches. Tires scream. Metal groans. Streetlights smear past in a strobe-lit nightmare.
Peter screams, a sound halfway between terror and apology.
Matt mutters something in Latin under his breath, calm as if reading a deposition in a cathedral while the world burns outside.
Wade throws his hands up, voice feral. “NARRATIVE ESCALATION!”
The police sirens fade. Silence presses in like an oxygen-thief.
Peter is shaking, nails digging into the door, boots pressing against the floor like he can anchor himself to sanity. “I think—I think I aged five years.”
“Hey! That makes you legal now! Congrats! I’ll buy your first Molotov cocktail! We’ll label it. Safety first!” Wade cheers, twirling the chimichanga like a baton, crumbs spilling over the console.
Matt adjusts his mask, deadpan. “You handled that well.”
Peter laughs, hysterical, voice cracking. “I’M NOT SUPPOSED TO BE HERE.”
Wade reaches behind him to pat Spidey on the shoulder with all the confidence of someone who should not be mentoring anyone. “Congratulations, kid. You’re the most responsible one on the team.”
Peter sobs. “That’s not comforting!”
Matt exhales slowly, measured, like he’s delivering a verdict instead of breathing. “…We need rules.”
Wade leans forward, eyes alight with terrible, delighted purpose, one hand on the wheel, the other gesturing wildly, crumbs trailing like legal evidence. “Rule one: I drive. Rule one-point-five: if I stop driving, we die. Democracy has failed. I’m now Sandra Bullock.”
“No,” Matt says evenly.
“Please no,” Peter adds immediately, voice cracking, fingers locked white-knuckled around the door frame like it might keep him alive.
Wade nods solemnly. “Ah. Dissent. Love that. We’ll circle back.”
“Rule two,” Wade continues, unfazed, “secrets are optional. Oversharing is mandatory. Trauma bonding starts… now.”
Matt pinches the bridge of his nose.
The car fishtails around another corner, suspension screaming its objections.
“WHEEE,” Wade adds, delighted.
Peter yelps, body jerking violently as the seatbelt bites into him, his thoughts dissolving into static, prayer, and a vivid mental image of Aunt May holding a sandal like a weapon.
“I am never getting my license,” he gasps. “I am never leaving my room. I am going to be homeschooled forever.”
A sharp beep slices through the chaos. The dashboard lights flare red, then blue, then something that definitely wasn’t factory-installed.
“Okay,” Tony’s voice cuts in, fast and sharp, layered with background typing. “Why did I just get twelve simultaneous alerts saying Spiderman’s biometric readings are spiking while he’s doing seventy-five through a residential neighborhood?”
Peter makes a small, strangled noise. “Mr. Stark—”
“—and,” Tony continues, steamrolling him, “why does the GPS think you’re actively outrunning NYPD cruisers, because I very explicitly programmed the suit to narc on you before that happened?”
Wade beams. “In your defense, the streets started it.”
“Is that… No, do not tell me that’s Deadpool’s voice,” Tony snaps. “Kid, why are you in a moving vehicle with a man who has his own FBI color-coding system?”
Wade scoffs. “Federal is adorable. I’m on at least three interstellar ones. I think one’s laminated. Besides, I’m driving not him. It’s fine!”
“I am inside your stolen vehicle’s onboard computer right now,” Tony says sharply.
“Wow,” Wade says, impressed. “You hack fast. I usually make people wait until the second date.”
Peter curls in on himself, hands over his head. “I’m grounded. I’m grounded forever. I can feel it in my bones.”
“Debatable,” Wade says cheerfully, swerving around debris.
“Deadpool,” Tony warns.
“Tony,” Wade sings back. “Buddy. Pal. Billionaire who absolutely let a baby in spandex leave the house knowing this was a possibility.”
Matt leans forward slightly, voice calm and precise, like he’s already drafting paperwork in his head. “You knew he was a minor. You authorized field activity. And you failed to ensure adequate supervision.”
There’s a brief pause. The typing stops.
“…Are threatening to sue me?” Tony asks.
“Yes,” Matt replies evenly. “For child endangerment.”
Another pause.
“Huh,” Tony says finally. “…That’s actually a solid case.”
Peter whimpers. “Please don’t go to court because of me.”
“Relax, Underoos,” Tony says. “If he sues me, I’ll settle. If he wins, I’ll make it policy. Either way, you’re coming home.”
Wade scoffs. “Wow. Accountability. Hate that.”
The engine roars as Wade floors it, city lights smearing into streaks of gold and red.
Peter’s voice cracks, small and wrecked. “I just went out to get a sandwich.”
“Congratulations,” Wade says brightly. “You survived your first Team Red outing.”
Matt closes his eyes, jaw set. “We are not getting a team-up name.”
“BOOO,” Wade declares, accelerating into the night.
Matt closes his eyes.
“I’m billing all of this.”