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This was the worst fucking day ever. As if her uncle not being able to celebrate his birthday with her and her family because he had been murdered wasn't enough, she had been informed that she couldn't pay for college, had humiliated herself in front of the whole world by crying in Johnny Storm's arms for no apparent reasons before getting tasered and abducted by the Men in black – all in less than twelve hours.
Seriously, it was some Guinness World Records shit.
But it was nothing compared to the fact that she had just woken up, attached to a chair in an empty room with gray walls. At least there wasn't a mirror in front of her, just a tiny camera, so they weren't hypocrite enough to pretend that they weren't watching her – whoever 'they' was.
The guy who had talked to her had said that he was from SHIELD, but SHIELD were supposed to be the good guys, right? Why would they kidnap her?
A door in her back opened, making her jump in surprise, and someone entered, the sole of their shoes loud in the deafening silence.
“Oh dear, I'm sorry you had to wake up alone here, you're probably scared and wondering what is going on.”
It was a man, with the tiniest accent indicating that he wasn't American, and when he stopped in front of her and leaned back against the wall, she realized that he was the man who had talked to her. What was his name again? Daniel? Devon? Something starting with D.
“You see, I really wish we could operate differently but my men are always edgy when we have to deal with people like you and… well,” he casually shrugged a shoulder, “we have orders.”
“What do you want?” asked Hilly, voice thick.
“We want you to work for us. Your abilities could be very useful to serve and protect your country and the world.”
“I'm already overwhelmed by New York, thank you but no thanks.”
She tried to move her hands but the cuffs holding her wrists behind her back were too heavy and solid. And that's when she realized that her mask, her gloves, the web-shooters and her shoes were all gone.
“Oh yeah, we have a little surprise for you and we needed you shoe size,” said the man when he saw her looking down at her toes.
She really needed a pedicure if she managed to get out of there.
“So what do you say, yes? Working with us comes with a lot of advantages: we have amazing medical coverage, business cars, even business houses or penthouses, depending on what you're working on. You'll get to travel all over the world, learn new languages and see new cultures. There's even a pottery club, so you can learn to make your own plates or whatever, I always thought that it was useless but maybe it is your cup of tea.”
He smiled, and Hilly really wanted to punch him in the dimple.
“Are you going to kill me if I say no?”
“Of course not, but we'll be very disappointed.”
“Oh, so you'll keep me locked here forever then.”
“No. But we do know your identity and address and we are very aware of the fact that your brother used to be Spiderman, and it is probably because of him that you put the mask on. So really, think about that for a moment.”
“Is this a threat?” she asked, pulse quickening.
“No, of course, but you are the one we want and if we can't have you, maybe we will turn to your brother. His name is Peter, right? He looks like such a brilliant and nice guy. I heard he got into the college he wanted, tell him congrats for me.”
Gritting her teeth, Hilly tried to keep a poker face and breathe calmly – which was becoming really hard.
“By the way, I'm sorry you couldn't get that scholarship. I've never been a high school student and a superhero at the same time but I guess it gets really hard to keep everything balanced. The good thing is, if you work with us – and don't worry it won't be full time – you'll get paid well enough to afford college.”
“I don't believe you.”
“You can read the contract we prepared for you, if that helps. It's a pretty good deal, you know.”
“Right. And I guess you tasered me and attached me to that chair to show how honest you are and how much you only want me to be happy.”
He pursed his lips and finally stopped leaning back against the wall, taking a step in her direction instead.
“I already told you, with powered people like you, it's gets ugly really fast so we have orders to follow. I would have done it differently if I was the one in charge.”
“And I should trust you because…?”
He smiled and moved to stand right behind her, his hands moving on the cuffs.
“You should trust me because I honestly think you could do some good to our cause,” he said just as he was freeing her hands.
Hilly immediately brought them in front of her and started rubbing at her wrist as the man faced her again and knelt to free her ankles.
“You said no so you're free to go but I need to show you something first. Only if you want, of course.”
She had no idea where she was or where were her mask and web-shooters, so they both knew she did not really have choice, and he smiled sweetly when she got up and followed him out the room.
“Here, put that on, we can't let everyone see your face,” he said, pulling her mask out of his jacket pocket and handing it to her.
She glared at him but put it on, feeling better now that her face was hidden.
He lead her through long gray hallways, two guys in black catsuits following them three steps behind, both with a hand on the gun at their hip. It almost made Hilly smile – she had literally nothing on her to harm them and her best hand-to-hand combat technique was a kick in the balls so really, it was ridiculous to see them ready like that for her to attack them.
It took them ten minutes before the man (Dennis? Derick? Something like that) stopped in front of a door, raised an amused eyebrow at Hilly and opened it, stepping inside a room empty of everything except a table.
There were her shoes on the table. Along with her gloves, the web-shooters and a perfect replica a the Spiderman costume, except that this one was black and looked smaller.
“You're offering me a make-over?” she asked, walking to the table to snatch her shoes and put them on – the floor was freaking cold.
“We're offering you a bulletproof costume.”
Hilly took her time putting the web-shooters and her gloves on before turning around to face the man again.
Asking him why would probably be stupid, judging from his still raised eyebrow, so she just stared at him until he took a step in her direction, putting his right hand in his pocket.
“It's kevlar and tailor-made, you should at least try it on. After what happened to you the other day, SHIELD thought that you could use it.”
“Right,” curtly replied Hilly, glaring at him.
It was never good to hear that SHIELD was watching her and she was pretty sure no one except Peter and Deadpool knew that she had been touched by bullets.
“There is also a replica of the contract I told you about in one of the pockets of the costume along with one of my business card. Everything is yours so take it, go home and think it over for a few days. You can call me then.”
Hilly had to fight a little to keep her unimpressed face on, even if he couldn't see it, because holy crap pockets in the costume?! Peter's costume didn't have pockets, she had to squeeze her phone in her boobs-concealer if she wanted to keep it on her when she was super-heroing.
“There is only one last thing that we have to do and that you are not going to like,” he added, taking another step in her direction as she stepped back, curling her fingers to be ready to shoot web if she had to, “but don't worry, it's not going to hurt.”
She dodged when the first guard in the catsuit fired little darts at her but couldn't do the same for the second guard and the electrical shock brought her to her knees, like the first time that day.
“Fuck!” she hissed between clenched teeth.
“Sorry, it's really for your good, we can't let you see our current location.”
She tried to reply but electricity ran through her body as she was opening her mouth, not once but twice and she passed out on the cold hard floor before she was even able to look up.
***
Hilly woke up to the sun rising, a ray of sunshine falling right on her face, laying on her stomach on the same rooftop she had been hanging out with Deadpool the night before.
At least she hoped it was the night before.
There was an open black dufflebag next to her and when she carefully looked into it, she found the black Spiderman costume – the one that was supposedly tailor-made and bulletproof and shit. She didn't want it. She didn't even want to be Spiderman, it was all Peter's doing and on bad days she blamed him (and Gwen) for everything.
Damn, why was this even happening to her?
Groaning while getting up and grabbing the dufflebag – maybe they had put a GPS or something on it but she didn't care, they clearly already knew everything about her – she decided to go home and spend the whole day in her bed. It wouldn't make her problems go away but it would at least make her feel better for a few hours.
***
“Are you avoiding me?” asked Peter.
“Of course no.”
“Hilly...”
“Dude I'm literally talking to you right now on the phone when I could have ignored your call! What more do you want?”
Peter sighed but she ignored him, finishing to web a burglar on a light-pole.
“I want to talk.”
“About what?”
“About everything!”
Fuck, Peter was using his hysterical voice, that wasn't good for her.
“I'm listening then,” she said, pursing her lips. The burglar was wiggling but he wasn't getting away anytime soon and she could already hear the police arriving so she quickly found a calm back alley to wait for Peter to finally speak.
It took him more than ten minutes.
“Okay, first of all what was your hug with Johnny about?”
“I was sad, he said he was here for me and poof, I was crying and he's a gentleman.”
She could almost hear Peter squint at her lie.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes,” she sighed, “I am not trying to steal your boyfriend.”
“He's not my boyfriend...” grumbled Peter. “Why were you sad?”
“You know damn well why.”
“Yeah sorry I just… I keep on having this nagging feeling that there is something you're not telling me.”
Closing her eyes, Hilly sighed.
“Can we talk about it later? I'm in the middle of a patrol right now.”
“Alright, yeah, whatever.”
“Peter I–” she started but he hung up before she could say anything, making her sigh again. “I can't believe TV makes having a twin look so easy and shit,” she muttered.
***
“How is this happening to me? What did I do to Zeus to make him hate me that much?” asked Hilly to the remains of the ceiling, “Why?!”
A bomb exploded ten meters to her right, as if it was answering her.
“Come on, it's not that bad!” replied Deadpool from where he was crouching next to her feet – cheerfully.
Of course he'd be cheerful. He was the reason Hilly was here, getting bombed and shit. All she had wanted was to hang out alone on some rooftops and he just had to stalk her, tell her all about his life and how some baddie was trying to kill him because he had killed his grannie for a job and poof! bombs were getting thrown at Deadpool (and Hilly, since he couldn't leave her alone) by said baddie.
Just another Wednesday afternoon, right?
“It is that bad and it is all your fault!” she screamed over the sound of something very big collapsing, before trying to kick him in the ribs
The motherfucker grinned at her under his stupid mask and grabbed her ankle, tracing a circle on the bone there with his thumb.
“Come on Spidey-boy, it's gonna be okay, Daddy Deadpool is here to protect you.”
She hoped he could feel her glare at him as she kicked him in the chin with her free leg. That made him groan in pain as he fell back on his ass and let go of her ankle, but the sound was covered by a new explosion.
“We need to get going,” she told Deadpool as soon as her ears weren't ringing too much anymore.
He nodded and let her grab him by the front of his costume to pull him up.
They had fallen through the roof into an old abandoned building sometime between the fourth and fifth explosion and after shooting at everything and anything, Deadpool had finally calmed down enough to just stop and let Hilly get them out of here. Which wasn't such a good thing because Hilly had no idea what to do – 'just go away' wasn't really a plan.
“I'm gonna kill you both!” cackled the baddie from somewhere that sounded behind them.
Hilly's body reacted on instincts: she tackled Deadpool, trying to protect his bigger body with her tiny one, just in time.
Three consecutive explosions shook the whole building and a part of the roof fell right were they were standing barely seconds ago.
“Fuck,” muttered Deadpool under her before rolling them over, “don't do shit like that again! I can survive a bomb, you can't!”
“Whatever...” she replied, out of breath.
She hoped he couldn't feel her fake dick or bandaged boobs because that would be awkward but judging by the way he was just staring at her mask, his elbows on either side of her head, she guessed he had more important things to do, like think about the fact that she had just saved his life and all.
“You're just jealous that I'm the one saving your ass now,” she said, pushing at his chest – damn, that guy probably lifted trucks just for fun judging by all the hard muscles.
He rolled to the right, finally not crushing her anymore with his gigantic chest, and Hilly sat up, head spinning a little.
“We need to get out of here before the whole building comes crashing down on our asses,” said Deadpool, back to crouching next to her, looking around with a gun in his right hand.
“What do you plan on doing with that gun anyway? I haven't even seen the guy who's attacking us.”
“That's because he is still on the rooftop.”
“Great,” she groaned. “I hope if the damn building comes crashing down on our asses, the guy's gonna die too.”
Deadpool snorted.
“Can you get us to the roof? It's the quickest way out,” he said, pointing to the giant hole above them.
“Yeah, I guess I could.”
She wrapped an arm around him, rolling her eyes when his hands ''accidentally'' brushed against her butt, and webbed them up the roof, dodging the falling debris and grenades the baddie kept throwing at them.
Everything happened very quickly once their feet touched the roof.
The first and only thing she registered was Deadpool raising his gun and aiming at the chubby man with a bald spot who had an explosive-belt and a shit ton of grenades wrapped around him like he was some kind of Christmas present. She tried to scream something along the lines of “Stop or we're all gonna die!” but the damn Merc grabbed her arm with his free hand and literally threw her over the rooftop's edge.
He fucking tossed her.
She didn't have time to react or even properly fall because less than a second later a gunshot was heard and everything exploded, the building started to collapse on itself and Hilly might have passed out for a second because when she opened her eyes after blinking, she was on the rooftop of another building, two streets away, and her body was hurting all over.
Surviving a giant explosion: check.
Getting thrown over a building: check.
Being too much in shock to remember breathing for several seconds: check.
Man, she was completing her Superhero Checklist pretty quickly!
She only started moving again when someone drawled a long “Ow yeaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” somewhere down the street. It suspiciously sounded like Deadpool, which shouldn't have been such a surprise to her because she had googled him and found out on a weird unknown blog that the guy's only real power was a super-healing factor that made it impossible to kill him.
Still, she was pretty surprised – and kind of relieved.
“You threw me off a building, you fucker!” she screamed at the top of her lungs after having crawled to the edge of the rooftop – she was starting to hate rooftops.
A low, raspy laugh echoed, not that far from her position, and Hilly let herself relax just a second because the asshole was laughing after having killed a man and destroyed probably a whole block, but at least he was still there and mostly alive.
She could break down into sobs and hyperventilate later, under the privacy of her blankets.
***
There were a lot of superheroes in New York. Like, a whole shit ton of them. Just between the Fantastic Four, the Avengers and the X-men, Hilly had no idea how people hadn't become tired of people with powers dressing in colorful leotards.
Maybe the fact that the city was under alien attack every two weeks was for something.
The point being – because she was making a point, a very important one – that they were so many superheroes in NYC, it was hard to keep up with who was who and what powers did they have and which team did they belong to. And Hilly having no interest in befriending or even just talking to her fellow superheroes made it even harder.
So there she was, fighting off weird-ass yellow aliens with a mutant. Or at least she thought that the guy next to her was a mutant. He had a sword, and a lame ponytail, and was jumping around every second or so and sending her side glances instead of actually fighting the motherfucking aliens.
And of course this stupid alien attack was happening the day after the whole exploding building debacle so the right side of her body was still burnt and hurting her. She was 80% sure that when Spidey was still Peter, shit like that hadn't happened to him.
The alien she punched made a disgusting suction sound when her fist collided with its face – or the round thing that was where human faces were, because those aliens just had two round black balls on top of their 'head' and a tiny hole in the middle of it, nothing else, so she wasn't sure if it was a face or something else entirely – and Swordy-Ponytail gagged.
“Don't puke dude, that's so uncool!” she told him, kicking the alien in the general area of its tummy because her fist was stuck in the alien's face and there was no way in hell she'd leave it here. She needed that hand!
The alien wrapped one of its three arm around her waist and tried to pull her closer to it, making her panic for real.
“Fuck!” she screamed, “Help me, use your fucking sword!” she told Swordy-Ponytail who was just standing there, watching with a horrified expression on his face. “Do something!”
“I… I don't want to hurt you!”
“That thing is trying to swallow me, you can't do worse than that!”
She tried to kick the alien again but her foot almost got stuck like her hand and the tiny hole in the middle of its face suddenly grew as big as said face.
It was a mouth after all. With a shit ton of razor-like teeth. From where she was standing only thirty centimeters away from it, she could see three rows of teeth, with two weird nightmarish tongues, but she couldn't be sure because the alien was breathing on her, and it smelled like the damn thing had eaten a rotten T-rex or something equally disgusting, making her a little light-headed and a lot disgusted.
She was so not going to die by being eaten by a weird-ass disgusting alien. No. Way.
Webbing the two tongues inside the alien's mouth together with her free hand – it didn't like it judging from the very low-pitched wail it made – Hilly tried to take her glove off to get her other hand back but she was wrist deep into the alien's head and she couldn't even move her fingers.
“Shit! Shit! Shit! I'm gonna lose my hand, oh my god. I need it, I can't lose it!”
Swordy-Ponytail jumped up and sliced another approaching alien in half, completely ignoring her. Of course he'd finally do something now that she was going to die. Of course.
Taking a deep breath in – which was hard because of the alien's breath – Hilly tried to not let panic completely overwhelm her so she could find a way out of this situation.
So, her right hand was stuck inside an alien's face. Said alien was trying to hug her so it could swallow her up. Good. Great. All she needed to do was to get her hand out, kill that motherfucking alien and move to Liechtenstein because no one ever tried to invade Liechtenstein, right? She didn't speak German but hey, she could always learn!
The good news was that if she did lose her hand, she could still write postcards for Aunt May and Peter from Liechtenstein because she was left-handed.
She was pulled out of her thoughts by the alien's third arm – the one that was shooting out of its solar plexus, if it had one – grabbing her left shoulder and pulling her closer. It was by far the scariest shit that had ever happened to her – and she had always thought that nothing could beat that very first night of her superheroing career when she had had to wrestle with a scientist turned into a giant lizard in order to save Gwen.
Webbing the first thing she could – a trash cash –, she swung it in the general direction of the alien's head, hoping to knock it out.
It didn't. It got stuck in its head too and the ridicule of the situation made her furious because there she was, a supposed superhero, being hugged by an alien who had a trash can and her arm sticking out of its face.
“Waoh, you really look like you could use a hand!” announced an annoying voice behind her.
She rolled her eyes but still felt a wave of relief when Deadpool stepped next to her, a katana in the hand, and cut the alien's arm that was holding her shoulder.
The alien screamed and tried to step back, bringing Hilly with it, but Deadpool didn't pay attention to it, cutting its two other arms instead.
“Now, that's better.”
“I'm still stuck.” she commented as he wrapped his arms around her waist and tried to pull her away from the alien. “Cut it's head off and then we'll work from that.”
“Alright, but I tried so don't get mad at me for killing!”
“Just fucking do it!”
Deadpool sighed and made a show of stepping behind the alien that was still wailing and now trying to bite Hilly's face off, and in one swift movement Deadpool cut its head off.
The alien's body exploded into mustard-colored sticky blood that soaked both Hilly and Deadpool but its head stayed in one piece, with Hilly's hand and the trash can and the scarily teethful mouth still open.
“I hate my life,” declared Hilly, straight-faced.
She was seconds away from collapsing on the ground and just lay there until death took her. Gangsters and thieves wearing stupid leotards, she could do, but aliens? No fucking way. She was done for the day.
Hell, she was done for the month!
“Come on, it's not that bad. I heard alien's heads are totally in in Japan right now,” said Deadpool, probably trying to be helpful or funny. None of those two were working, it just made her feel even worse. “If it makes you feel any better I'd still fuck you even if you keep that atrocity for ever.”
Hilly punched him right in his fucking nose, using the alien's head as a boxing glove and just enough of her superhuman force to make him take three steps back and yelp in pain as he grabbed his nose.
“That fuckin' 'urt!” he cried out, clamping his hands over the lower part of his mask.
“Good. Cause my hand is still inside an alien's head and I'm never gonna fuck you. Ever.”
“Pff, that's what they all say at first and then they–”
He continued talking even as another alien tried to approach them and he cut its head off but Hilly tuned him off. Swordy-ponytail was staring at her while fighting off an alien with his sword, ten meters away, and she wondered if maybe he had been Spidey's friend. Or maybe Peter had kissed him too without telling her – she hoped not because if he had, she'd have to kill her twin for real this time.
Speaking of which, The Human Torch had been flying not far from there ever since the attack had started and was now floating in the air, watching her.
She waved at him with her right hand because she was pretty sure it would have made Peter laugh until he had tears in his eyes – he was weird like this – and turned her attention back to Deadpool, who was still babbling and swinging his katana in every direction.
“Look, just put your damn katana in the alien's head, try to not cut my hand and that's it, I can go back to saving New York.”
“You sure? Cause that level of trust you're putting on me is… disconcerting.”
Rolling her eyes, Hilly nodded.
“Yeah I'm fucking sure, it's not like I have a choice. And I saved your ass yesterday so you better not fuck up.”
“I'd like to remind you that I saved your ass first. Several times,” he replied, smirking, before looking down at her hand.
It was probably a very bad idea, especially since Deadpool was raising his katana way too high and seemed to be looking at her mask instead of the alien's head he was supposed to cut, but what other choice did she have, huh? She couldn't go home with that attached to her and her only other super-powered buddy (who was her sort of boyfriend too?) was a little busy in the sky, setting everything on fire, so yeah. Deadpool had to do it.
“Seriously though, don't cut off my hand, I need it,” she felt obliged to add.
“Oh don't worry, the last thing I want is to cut off your hands, baby-boy. I fantasize way too much about them.”
She didn't roll her eyes only because she didn't want to miss what he was going to do.
He raised his katana even higher, his smile growing bigger, and lowered it down on the alien's head at the same time as someone screamed, Deadpool's costume caught on fire and something very sharp and hard collided with Hilly's head, making her fall face first on the ground.
Eyes closed because her skull was vibrating from the attack and from having her head bounce off the ground when she had fallen, she only came back to herself when someone started looking for her pulse.
“What the fuck,” she muttered – or tried to because it sounded more like a whispered “Wha t' f'”
“Oh thank god he's alive!” said someone next to her ear way too loudly.
“Yeah, no thanks to you!”
“I am so sorry!” screamed a third voice.
“Shut the fuck up, I'll take care of you as soon as I'm sure Spidey isn't dead.”
Her head was killing her and her mask was suddenly very sticky.
Oh shit.
She was bleeding, wasn't she?
Using every bit of energy she had left, Hilly managed to raise her left hand and touch the right side of her head, feeling blood sipping through her glove as soon as she did.
Way too much blood.
She almost puked when she realized that the hard thing under her fingers was a bone – her freaking skull.
“Oh my god, I'm gonna die.”
Someone gently grabbed her wrist and pushed her hand away and Hilly finally remembered that she was in the middle of an alien invasion and that they were people around her. Probably the person who had done that to her.
Jumping to her feet, she saw stars for a second and swayed to the right, and was surprised to come face to face with Deadpool who had his gun against Swordy-Ponytail's forehead, both of them staring at her as a third person behind her was still holding her wrist – and mostly holding her up too.
She looked over her shoulder at The Human Torch who was way paler than usual and tried to make sense of everything.
Good news: her right hand was now free of any alien head. She still couldn't move her fingers but hey, baby steps.
Bad news: she had done her homework and feeling dizzy, nauseous and drowsy after being hit very hard on the head meant that she had a concussion according to Google, Deadpool seemed ready to kill Swordy-Ponytail right there on the spot and oh, look at that, Swordy-Ponytail's sword was dripping blood all over the asphalt.
“Did you try to saber me?” asked Hilly, because it was the only thing she could mutter with the way her head was pulsating.
Swordy-Ponytail grimaced, looking very scared – it probably had to do with Deadpool's gun on him.
“I'm so sorry! I was trying to cut his hand off!” he cried out hysterically, pointing at Deadpool.
“It looked like he was attacking you,” added The Human Torch behind her. “But that was not a reason to go crazy with the fucking sword man!”
Hilly ignored them in order to grab her mask and push it up to her nose right in time.
She threw up all over Swordy-Ponytail and right there, in the middle of her lunch, there was blood, which wasn't good at all. She needed to go and find someone who would help her not die.
It was only once she was already mid-way in the air, webbed to a building with the whole word flipping over around her, the other three still next to the dead alien and the pool of vomit, that she realized she should have maybe waited a little before running away from them.
She still managed to get a little away from the whole alien invasion and found a quiet rooftop to stumble on, taking her mask off quickly and spattering blood all over her costume and hair.
It hurt like hell and she clearly needed medical attention but going to the ER was impossible while still dressed as Spiderman and she didn't even know if any hospital would still be open and running under these circumstances.
“Fucking hell,” she hissed between clenched teeth, trying to put pressure on the big gushing wound, only managing to put blood all over her sleeve and aggravate her headache. “If I die because of this I'm coming back to haunt their asses, I can't fucking believe...”
“Hey, you okay Spidey?” called a voice behind her, making her jump.
She felt all blood rushing from her face as she slowly turned to meet no other than Deadpool – how the fuck had he climbed the freaking building so fast? – who seemed surprised even through his mask.
Dread and panic wasn't a good combo for someone bleeding like a stuck pig and with a concussion and Hilly wondered for a second if all the blood pouring down her face would be enough to make her unrecognizable – it would have been the only good thing happening to her that day.
“Holy shit!” he cried out, shattering all her hopes. “But you... You have a...” he gestured to his groin and Hilly blinked down at hers, not understanding what he was trying to say at first.
“Oh!” was the only thing she could come up with when she finally got what he meant. “Oh yeah I... I don't have a dick. That's not a dick you see it's uh... something else... Not a dick.”
Deadpool didn't move and Hilly had to blink to not get blood in her eyes, wondering what she should do now that her super secret identity was blown. She couldn't kill him and couldn't let everyone know who she was... maybe if she stayed there just staring at him long enough she would totally bleed to death – that was the easiest and quickest solution she could come up with.
“You're bleeding very badly y'know,” he finally said, taking a step in her direction.
She snapped back into reality and put her mask back on, sight blurry and her head spinning.
“I'll be okay,” she said before throwing a web at the closest building and swinging away, hoping that he was going to leave her alone.
She face-planted into the building. Of course.
Not passing out was hard, very hard, but she knew that with a concussion, taking a nap would mean dying and adding to that aliens trying to swallow her walking all over the streets…
Yeah, she was fucked.
“Hey, I can help, you know!” screamed Deadpool from the rooftop she had just vacated. “Seriously, I don't want you to die!”
Hilly groaned, because no matter what she did, it seemed that she always ended up having Deadpool take care of her pathetic ass, and she gently jumped back to the roof, falling to her knees as soon as her feet touched the ground.
“Here,” said Deadpool, shoving a smartphone into her hands and grabbing her bride-style. “Google what to do about that concussion, cause I'm pretty fucking sure you have one, and don't fall asleep on me.”
“I hate you,” she slurred.
Squinting down at the tiny screen of his phone was hard since she was seeing in double and blurry. Adding to that the fact that her right hand still didn't want to cooperate and her left glove was so soaked in various blood – hers and the alien's – that she had to press sixteen times on the Google app for it to come up, and the whole googling thing took her the whole trip to Deadpool's apartment.
She had trouble keeping her eyes open and everything was hurting by the time he set her down on his bathroom's counter, talking rapidly and loudly even though she heard everything through a wall of cotton, and he didn't use any anesthetic to stitch her head but it was fine, she'd live.
She just needed to take a quick nap first.
***
Hilly was slapped awake.
For the fifth time already.
“You're gonna gimme another concussion,” she commented, pushing her blood-caked hair away from her face.
She didn't remember when Deadpool had unmasked and ungloved her but hey, she could move her right pinky finger now, even if the other four fingers were still clenched.
“Yeah well, google is telling me to let you rest but not let you fall asleep until your pupils stop being weird so sorry, but I'm gonna have to slap you until you stop falling asleep.”
“Is the phone finally workin'? I need to call someone.”
He checked and shook his head. His mask was pushed up his nose, so she could see his mouth and jaw, like that one time she had eaten breakfast with him, and through the blur of her eyes his scars looked like veins. It was super weird.
“Only in NYC would the wifi work during an alien invasion but not th'fuckin' phone,” she muttered.
Deadpool snorted.
“You know, you're even funnier when you're almost bleeding to death in my bathroom.”
“'m not bleeding anymore,” slurred Hilly, before blinking down at the couch she was sitting on, “and I'm in the living room?”
“Yeah, for the last time we're in the living room. You keep on forgetting that, it's slightly freaking me out.”
Blinking up at him – and squinting a lot because he was leaning against a window and the light was blinding and not helping with her terrible headache – she opened her mouth to reply but forgot what she wanted to say before she could do anything else.
“I should probably go to the hospital.”
“I literally told you that fifteen minutes ago and you punched me and told me that you couldn't because people couldn't know that you're Spidey and then you started babbling about some girl named Gwen, I don't know, I stopped listening.”
“Do you think I could have done something to help save her?”
Deadpool seemed to frown under his mask, but she couldn't be totally sure, and he crossed the space separating them, finally walking away for the damned window, to sit on the coffee table in front of her.
“Is your headache getting worse?” he asked.
Hilly shook her head. “Do you think I could have saved her? I probably could have helped, but I didn't want to, and didn't know how. She's dead now, because Spidey couldn't save her.”
“It happens.”
“And you wanna know a secret?” she asked, leaning in his direction, “I'm trying to find the fucker who killed her, so I can make him pay. I heard he's in prison but that's not enough, you know? And since Pe–” she trailed off before saying her brother's name, “since the only one who knows what happened for real doesn't wanna help me, I'm gonna find him myself. 'S why I went to th' Baxter Building and all. But I don't think they know either.”
“Wait, so that was really you?! Holy shit, do they know that?!”
Hilly shook her head and fell back on the couch, sliding down the pillows and starting to close her eyes.
“Hey, no sleeping!”
She whined but that did not stop Deadpool from grabbing her arm and forcing her to sit up straight.
“Come on, tell me everything about you sneaking into the FF's fortress. I knew you were badass but not that much, that's… that's hot!”
“Whatever,” she slurred, flailing her left hand around.
“Also, another important question now that I know you're a girl: where the fuck are your boobs?”
Hilly pointed to her chest.
“Do you bandage them so they don't get in the way?”
She nodded, one eye sliding shut.
“Can I see?”
She slapped him on the forehead, smirking when he groaned.
A second later she was letting her body fall forward on his lap, already dozing off.
***
When Hilly woke up that time around, it was to the sound of someone screaming in a very high-pitched voice. That made her groan in pain because headache and the stitches holding her scalp together were starting to hurt almost as much as her face and she didn't even remembered what had happened for her face to hurt this much.
Also she had no idea when the hell she was and how she had ended up laying on something.
She opened her eyes with great difficulties and squinted at an old woman sitting on an orange plastic chair who was looking at something next to Hilly's face with big scared eyes. Following her gaze, Hilly saw a red hip stained by yellow alien blood and nothing else because her head was hurting too much for her to crane her neck.
“See, she's alive! Now do your fucking job and make sure she stays not-dead!” shouted a voice from somewhere above the red hip that was scaring the old woman in the ugly chair. A voice Hilly knew.
She tried to do something, like maybe ask the person who was still screaming to shut the fuck up, but her tongue felt like too big for her mouth and her throat like sandpaper so she coughed instead.
“Help her or I swear I will press that fuckin' trigger.”
The screaming stopped, replaced by whimpers instead, and the older woman didn't look less scared but Hilly relaxed just a little.
“Wh– What ha– What happened?” asked someone standing near her feet – this was the screaming person, Hilly just knew it.
“Some fucktard hit her with his sword in the head. I think she has a concussion too.”
“My head bounced off the ground and then a building some time later,” Hilly added, not even realizing that she was talking until the old woman turned her gaze to her. “And my hand is paralyzed because an alien tried to eat me, but I can move my pinky finger now,” she said, moving said finger to show them, “but I still can't feel anything.”
“Alright...” said the previously screaming person.
Hilly wanted to add something, like maybe ask the old woman where she was, and if Deadpool was really holding a gun to everyone's head, and maybe even ask where the fuck was her spandex costume and why she was wearing sweatpants and an ugly Hawaiian shirt, but someone shined a light right at her eyes and she passed out twelve seconds later.
***
Walking up in a bed that smelled weird, next to Deadpool, with her mask off was the kind of experience Hilly had wished she'd never have.
Unfortunately for her, life happened.
And as it was often the case when straight up crazy bad shit happened to her, she pretended that her life was nothing else but another bad reality tv show. She could almost hear it: in today's episode of Keepin' Up With The Shitty Spidey, we get to see Hilly fight off disgusting yellow monsters, get a limb trapped inside one of them, then pass out every ten seconds as her dear stalker the mercenary gives her a free make-over. And let's not forget about her sort-of-not-really-boyfriend and a completely unknown mutant trying to decapitate her!
Life wasn't even pretending to give her lemons anymore. It was straight-up serving her radioactive waste.
Her web-shooters were on the bedside table next to her, and she put them on and webbed her poor blood-soaked costume that was resting on the floor closer before rolling off the bed and starting to crawl her way to the nearest exit.
She could have walked. Probably.
Her head was still spinning so she wasn't taking any chances.
She managed to get to the living-room's big window and realized that the night had fallen on New York – and that no one was screaming anymore, so either everyone was dead or the aliens had been defeated. Either way, she didn't care.
Getting on her knees to open the pane and get on the other side of it was tricky but once she had fallen on the balcony three floors below, she just had to swing home, and it was the easiest thing she had to do all day.
Peter's bedroom window was the first one she saw and she didn't even think before using it to enter and falling into her twin's bed. She'd tell him what had happened after a good night’s sleep.
***
Peter was watching her when she woke up, three days later – she knew because it was the first thing he said.
“You've been sleeping for three days. I told Aunt May that you were attacked by some alien but someone helped you and you came home. She's at the hospital right now, helping. There's also a video going around on internet, showing a fucking mutant hitting you with his sword. In the head.”
Hilly groaned in his pillow.
“I went to the hospital, I'm gonna be fine,” she muttered, pushing his covers over her head.
“Yeah, nice shirt by the way.”
“It's the only thing I found. Couldn't go as Spidey now, could I?”
“Right,” he snorted. “About that.”
“What did you do?” she groaned.
Peter didn't reply, so she slowly pushed the covers away and sat up, squinting at him through the aggressive light coming from the open curtains.
“Why the fuck are you wearing this?” she asked once she'd been able to keep both eyes open for more than a second, paling.
Peter shrugged and looked down at his gloved hands that were holding onto the Spiderman mask.
“The aliens came back two days ago, and I guessed New York could use Spidey's help but you wouldn't wake up and looked like you really needed the rest so...”
“So you're back?”
“I'm not sure,” he said, shrugging a shoulder. “It feels good to finally be Spidey again but… I don't know, I'm still scared shitless.”
Hilly wanted to tell him that she was too, and that seeing him in the Spidey costume again was weird, but strangely reassuring, but she had a sudden lump in her throat and she knew that this lump was here because Peter had to put himself in danger because she had failed as a superhero.
“I don't want you to be Spidey because you feel like you have to,” she said after a long silence.
“I don't want to be Spidey, at all, so don't worry.”
And with that, he started stripping off the costume, then put a pajama on and joined Hilly in his single bed, tucking her face against his shoulder.
“Please, just tell me you're okay,” he murmured against the crown of her head.
“I am, I'm okay. Everything's alright.”
Peter sighed, aware that she was totally lying, but he said nothing and let her go back to sleep.