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When Peter comes to, there's a weight pressing against his chest. A very heavy, warm, slightly moist weight.
"Don't get me wrong," the weight says, "that is indeed a gun in my pocket, but I'm still happy to see you."
"Ugh!" Peter wrinkles his nose in disgust while jerking away from Deadpool, who is far too cheerful for someone missing the lower half of their body.
Memories of what's happened come flooding back to the forefront of Peter’s mind. His investigation of a string of kidnappings had led him to a seemingly abandoned warehouse, only for him to run into Deadpool who was on the hunt for his next target. They didn't realize the two were connected until it was too late.
There had been the deafening, earth-shaking boom of hidden explosives detonating, then bursts of heat and smoke as everything collapsed around them, and then nothing but greyish darkness covered in a choking layer of dust.
Peter feels like he's been thrown against a brick wall after being stomped on by The Rhino; everything hurts. He checks for broken bones and life-threatening wounds, but while he thinks he may have cracked a rib or two, he's relatively fine. And he's pretty sure that's due to the person who's still chuckling at their own perverted sense of humor.
"You saved me?" Peter asks, and forgive him for sounding incredulous, but this is Deadpool after all.
"A-yup," Deadpool says, lounging on his side and waving one of leg stumps about in a manner that Peter thinks is supposed to be coquettish. "You can thank me later. Or you can thank me now if you want. Not one to deny a guy a secret amputee fetish."
It's about this time that Peter almost wishes the blast killed him instead.
--
When Peter finally has full grasp on the world of consciousness, he takes stock of their surroundings. They're stuck in a little crevasse, formed by a fallen support beam and a torn sheet of corrugated metal that's scorched black. A low hanging braided steel cable provides tension for the whole thing, kind of like poles on a tent, but every now and then it creaks in a way that sets Peter's nerves on edge.
"We need to find a way out of here," Peter says as he goes to grab hunks of debris to move them out of the way. But stops when he sees Deadpool is still lying on the ground. "Deadpool, come on!"
But Deadpool has his arms propped under his head, as if he's on a tropical beach paradise somewhere instead of underneath what’s used to be a building earlier today. "I wouldn't touch that pipe if I were you. You don’t want to know where it’s been," he says, not even facing Peter's direction.
“What pipe--” Peter starts to ask at the same time his hand brushes said pipe, since apparently his life is just one long comedy of errors. He barely touched the thing, but it’s enough to jar the wreckage it’s lodged in and send pieces of rubble cascading down to the spot where he’s sitting.
Well, was sitting. Because Deadpool moves fast for someone temporarily without legs. He tugs Peter down and out of the way just in the nick of time and rolls, bracing himself above Peter by placing his elbows on either side of Peter’s chest.
It’s a rare moment for both of them to be quiet. For Peter, it’s because he’s too shocked to speak, instead focusing on replacing the air that’s been knocked out of his lungs. His heart feels like a jackhammer trying to pound its way out of his ribcage, and after awhile he realizes he can feel Deadpool’s beating to a similar tempo as well. It’s a surreal sensation, one that Peter hasn’t experienced in awhile, and maybe he’s got a concussion or something, because it’s not exactly unpleasant.
That is, of course, Deadpool ruins it by--what else?--opening his big fat mouth.
“That’s twice now you’ve had me top,” he says, his voice low and breathy and reeking of stale Mexican food. “Mrs. Robinson, you're trying to seduce me.”
“Get off!”
“Believe me, Baby Boy, I’m trying--”
“No, get off of me!” Peter shoves Deadpool off, a little harder than he needs to, but he’s really pissed now. “Look, I don’t know if this is some sort of sick joke to you, but I’m trying to save our skins.”
“It won’t work,” Deadpool says, resuming his earlier position of nonchalance.
“What do you mean it won’t work?” Peter snaps, so infuriated that out of all the people he could be stuck with, it has be the one that so indifferent to human life including his own.
“It won’t work.” Deadpool repeats. He then sighs and reaches a hand up to gesture at various points in the mangled remains of the warehouse. “I’ve been in enough collapsed buildings before to know that anything you touch runs the risk of us being squashed like a bug, or a spider in your case, get it? Plus, I already tried while you were knocked out for forever, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Oh,” Peter says, any glimmer of drive he’s had deflating out of him like a balloon. But then realization strikes: “Wait, if you were conscious this entire time, why you were on top of me when I woke up?”
“Uh, duh.” Deadpool shrugs. “Who’d pass up a chance to lay their head down on your sweet manly spider-bosom?”
Peter responds by hurling a broken chunk of cinder-block at Deadpool’s head.
--
While they’re waiting for a rescue--or for their bodies to be found, whichever comes first. Peter is obviously for the former while Deadpool remains undecided--the two of them have “titillating” gems of conversation, such as:
“No, I’m not doing it.”
“Awww, Spidey, why not? It would be a great way to pass the time and we’ve got nothing else to do.”
“I’m not singing ‘99 Bottles of Beer’ with you. Not when I’d like to get out of here with as much as my sanity intact as possible.”
And also:
“Do you think anyone else is trapped? If there any other survivors?”
“Who cares? Probably what’s-his-face’s guys who were too dumb to get out before the bomb went off. They’re the ones who deserve to be cramped in a spot tighter than the back of a Mexican Coyote’s van, not us.”
“ I was thinking more along the line of anyone who’s been kidnapped. You know, the whole reason I’m here in the first place?”
“...Oh, right. Well, let’s just hope this place puts the ‘abandoned’ in ‘abandoned warehouse,’ then.”
Not to mention:
“C’mon, I told you mine!”
“After I told you repeatedly that I didn’t want to know. Especially in so much graphic detail.”
“That’s the rules! Now, if you had to do a dude, who would it be?”
“If I tell you, will it get you to shut up?”
“No promises! Just give me one, any one!”
“...Andrew Garfield, I guess? I like his movies.”
“Hole-lee shit, that is some delicious meta-mindfuck right there! I think I just came.”
“Ugh, what, I didn’t want to hear that---what?”
“Don’t worry, the readers at home will get it.”
“I really don’t understand what you’re saying most of the time.”
--
Peter doesn’t know how much time has passed since they’ve been trapped. It could be minutes, hours, maybe even days? He would try and check, but his phone didn’t survive the explosion and is busted in a number ways that he knows his insurance will refuse to cover.
But it doesn’t take long before reality of the situation hits him: he might never experience blue skies and fresh air ever again, or that he’s seen his family and friends for the last time without even knowing it. What if he can’t be Spider-Man any more.
He could die down here. And he doesn’t know what scares him more: the possibility of no one ever finding him, or that his Aunt May will finally know the truth about him after she has to identify his body at the city morgue.
The corners of his eyes begin to sting, and before he knows it he’s rolling up the bottom of his mask to wipe away the snot bubbling from his nose. He chokes back a sob and tells himself he’s ridiculous to give up hope so easily, but the tears don’t stop coming once they start.
“Guess who’s not going to miss leg day!” Deadpool calls out as he wriggles his newly reformed legs, but stops short at the sight of Peter. “Whoa, Spidey, you okay?”
Peter snorts weakly because that’s such a ridiculous question. He turns on his side, away from Deadpool, and curls in on himself. “For once in your life, could you just leave me alone?”
That was cruel, even towards someone like Deadpool, who is actually trying to help. Peter knows this, knows that he should apologize, but he can’t. Not while his chest is heaving in out and out of his control.
He jumps when he feels Deadpool’s hand reach over him to rest on his belly just below his ribs, but he doesn’t attempt to remove it. The weight is strangely comforting and Peter can take all the comfort he can get right now, no matter the source.
“Shh,” he hears Deadpool whisper in his ear, causing Peter to shiver. “Try to breathe with me, okay? In one-two-three-four, out slowly one-two-three-four…”
They stay like that for awhile until Peter manages to get himself together and stop hyperventilating. The next time Deadpool speaks, it’s in the most serious and sincere tone Peter’s ever heard him use. “Panic attack, huh.”
“Yeah, I guess,” Peter says, hastily wiping the tear-tracks away from his cheeks. “How did you know?”
“Get them from time myself. Usually it’s from cows.”
Now that actually makes Peter laugh out loud. “Why cows? Do I even want to know?”
“Cows are scary! I don’t trust them and their dark, beady eyes,” Deadpool insists, though he’s laughing too. He settles back down soon after though. “I, uh, I’ve had them for other reasons too, but you have to reach friend level 9000 before you can unlock my super secret backstory.”
He still hasn’t moved his hand. Peter decides not to mention it.
--
The air is starting to thin out, causing Peter to feel like his head has been replaced with a thirty-pound bag of cotton. He wants nothing more than to go to sleep, but he knows that’s a definite death sentence, so he’s struggling to stay awake. But it’s getting more difficult to keep his eyes open by the second.
Even Deadpool must have finally realized the severity of the situation, because he’s been unusually quiet for awhile. He’s taken his hand back too, and Peter tries to ignore how the spot where it was on his body feels cold now.
There’s suddenly...something, a faint sound that Peter can’t quite make out. At first he thinks he’s imagining things, that it’s a hallucination brought on by the increased amount of carbon dioxide. But then he hears it again, louder this time.
Shouting. It’s shouting, and it’s coming from above them.
“You hear that too, right?” Peter asks, wanting confirmation that it’s not all in his head. “Deadpool?”
But when Deadpool doesn’t answer, Peter turns over and nudges him. “Hey, are you listening to me or--”
Deadpool’s still, too still. His limbs are unnaturally stiff, his chest unmoving. And then Peter sees why: Deapool’s mask is pushed up and his hand is clamped tightly over his nose and mouth, locked in position by rigor mortis.
Peter instantly backs away, bile rushing to the back of his throat. He’s seen dead bodies of course, more often than he would have liked, but it still gets to him every time. The fact that it’s Deadpool this time and thus (probably) won’t be permanent fails to provide any comfort.
It doesn’t make sense. Why Deadpool deliberately asphyxiate himself? Unless...unless…
Unless he was trying to conserve oxygen. To save it, for Peter.
Before Peter can even contemplate this, how painful it must have been, how Deadpool managed to suffocate in silence, he hears the shouting again and it’s close enough that he can even make out the words.
“Here!” He croaks out, praying that his voice will carry enough through the debris. “We’re down here!”
Gravel and rubble tumble down as everything starts to tremble violently and Peter thinks this it, it’s going to finally collapse and kill them after all. But then a slab of concrete that’s been their makeshift ceiling is lifted up by huge, gamma-green hands to reveal the Hulk tossing it to the side like it’s a piece of tissue paper.
“Spider-Man?” Iron-Man is there too, hovering over the newly formed opening. “You alright in there, kid?”
“Better now,” Peter says, coughing to clear his throat from the dust. “Deadpool’s here too, but--”
“Deadpool?” Iron-Man shakes his head. “Should’ve know he was behind all this.”
“No!” Peter shouts with a force that surprises everyone, himself included. “It wasn’t his fault. Look, Tony, I’ll explain everything, but can it wait until I’m back on terra firma, please?”
--
Peter’s never been happier to breathe in the smog-filled air of New York City’s streets in his entire life. He’s half-tempted to kiss the asphalt he’s so grateful, but thankfully he does have some ounce of self-preservation left.
After being examined by Bruce (who had the decency to put clothes back on once he’s no longer the big green guy), Peter is declared medically stable. Sure, his ribs are going to be sore for a few days, he’s going to be wiping soot and grime from behind his ears for even longer, and who knows how many therapy sessions he’s going to need after this, but at least he’s alive. He’s alive.
He’s sitting on the sidelines now, devouring a hot dog he’s snagged from a street vendor like it’s a gourmet feast while also watching the rescue team pick through the rest of debris for other possible survivors. He knows he probably should be assisting in the search, but it’s going to take a while before he’s going to be comfortable with small spaces again. The others seem to understand.
There’s loud yawning beside him as Deadpool sits up and stretches his arms over his head. “What’d I miss? Huh, when did the Avengers come down from their ivory tower?”
Peter rolls his eyes, because of course that’s the first thing Deadpool notices, not the fact that they’re no longer buried under tons of concrete and steel. “A funny thing happens when a building explodes without warning: people want to investigate it.”
“Bullshit, this is New York City,” Deadpool scoffs. “They should just label daily demolitions as a tourist attraction at this point.”
“Kind of like, ‘Come to New York, it’ll be a blast,’ sort of thing?” Peter asks, his lips twitching into a grin. “Somehow I don’t see that catching on.”
“That’s because you lack creative vision,” Deadpool says, poking Peter in the chest. “You watch, I’m going to be selling ‘authentic souvenirs from the battleground’ on Ebay during the next Skrull invasion. You have any of those hot dogs left by the way?”
Peter tosses the one he’s been saving over, along with a bottle of water. While Deadpool eats, Peter plays with the aluminum wrapper from his own food, not knowing how to approach the subject that’s been weighing heavily on his mind.
“Hey, Wade?” he starts with an awkward scratch to the back of his head. “I just want to say...thanks...for back there.”
“Mmph?” Deadpool replies around the hot dog shoved into his mouth. He swallows and rubs the crumbs from his face with the back of his hand before he says, “Don’t mention it. It’s what friends do, right?”
“Yeah,” Peter says, not correcting him. Not this time. “That’s what friends do.”
--
A week later, after they finally nab the son of a bitch behind this whole thing--alive and intact, no thanks to a certain red and black suited someone who protests that the guy should be treated in a way that makes Guantanamo Bay look like a day spa--Deadpool pulls Peter off to the side and hands over a cassette tape.
“I made this for you,” he says, and if Peter didn’t know any better, he would say that Deadpool is actually acting shy. “To commemorate our first date.”
There’s so many things Peter finds wrong with that, the primary one being that what happened was in no way, shape, or form a date. But also, who the hell makes mixtapes any more?
Curiosity gets the better of him though, and the next day Peter finds himself humming the tune “Stuck In The Middle With You.” And if more tapes pop up in the days that follow, well, he’s not complaining.