Peter's heart dropped when he twisted and saw the random masked man sitting on top of his building. He was warmed that the guy was concerned about his well-being, he couldn't say anyone else was. But why did the guy have to see him crawl out of his bloody fucking apartment, damnit!

Should he go up and confront him? He really didn't want to, but was it safe to leave this whole situation hanging in the air? He growled to himself and shot a web at the corner of the building and tugged, shooting himself up into the air. He twisted and shot out another strand to adjust his fall so he'd land on the top of his apartment building a few yards away from the stranger. Deadpool he realized as the red-clad man looked his way. 

He'd heard of the guy now and again and there was never anything good to be said. The public called him an anti-hero, but in truth, he seemed to be a deadly nuisance more than anything. Despite that, he still had a better light on him than Peter did because of the Bugle's defamation. If he had money, he would consider seeing for Libel, but there were technicalities that went along with that considering he had to prioritize his identity in the end. Even if the courts were so kind as to not publicly out him, someone would spill the beans for clout. And then the world would get angry that Spider-Man was nothing more than an average white guy with brown hair. 

"You live here?" The merc asked as he jutted his thumb behind him, his voice squeezed a few notes higher to come off as friendly Peter supposed.

"If I did do you think I'd tell you?" He splayed his hands out to accentuate how stupid the question was with his body language. The thing with masks was that you had to play up the body language in order to convey any of your facial expressions. One day he wanted to make a mask that could display that much with some fluctuations in his eye lenses, but that was a project for when he had a few hours and extra thousand dollars to spare. And as it stood, he was contemplating whether or not to send out a handful of cards, so he was far from that dream. 

"Uh, no." The merc answered curtly. 

He walked towards the man and stopped when there was a fair six feet between them, close enough to be in the conversation but plenty far to make it clear they weren't friendly. He crossed his arms and cocked his head. "Why are you here?"

Deadpool leaned back against an arm and stared back at him casually. "It's a free country, I can sit where I want."

"Sure it is," Peter laughed coldly. "Only the rich and the stupid believe that, but go on."

"Funny coming from a guy wearing the colors of the flag."

"Funny coming from a guy who'd fit right in with the Nazi flag." Peter countered. 

There was a long beat of silence from the mercenary as squinted back at him. Peter felt a stab of jealousy when he realized the man's face was expressive. That wasn't fair.

"Yknow, I was the blonde and blue-eyed kid in school. I don't find the Nazi jokes as funny as the next guy, too many 'out of everyone in this room only Mr. Wilson and Jaden would have survived' throughout school for me to feel anything." Deadpool adjusted his position so he was less open and less welcoming. He pulled one of his legs in to lean on his knee while he looked up at Peter. "My suit is red and black because it hides blood the best, others but mostly my own. Why's your ass blue?"

"Because it would look pretty stupid if I had that webbing pattern on my butt," Peter admitted, looking down at himself.

"Yup." the man agreed, glancing him over before turning his attention towards the street. "That puffy paint for the webbing?"

Peter sighed "Yeah, can't afford to embroider it or something nicer."

"Well it looks nice, you have a steady hand." Deadpool stood then, the movement making Peter tense but he didn't sense anything off. "Well, nice meeting you Spider-Man but I've got shit to do. Sorry for scaring you or whatever. I'll refrain from telling the world where you live. Or don't live, It's none of my business."

He walked over and took Peter's hand, giving it an aggressive single shake that Peter didn't reciprocate before walking past towards the fire escape. 

And then he was gone. 

Peter resisted the temptation to groan until he knew that Deadpool was at least far enough down the side of the building not to hear him. He had a bad feeling about this, even if Deadpool had no interest in him, that didn't mean he wouldn't become a problem in the next week or year to come. 

The rest of his patrol went well. He managed to stop two mutants from breaking into an apartment building and he found a lucky penny while they were waiting for the police to show up on the scene to pick up the teenage losers. 

He didn't get nervous again until he returned home, unable to ignore the concern that something was tampered with while he'd been gone, He scoured his tiny apartment for any signs that his space had been invaded but didn't find anything amiss. Nevertheless, he felt nervous when he stripped down for his shower. He'd triple-checked the front door and the window he'd crawled out of that night. He'd even gone ahead and checked all the other windows in the apartment, being sure that the window next to the fire escape had its plank of wood braced between the top of the frame and the window so that it couldn't be pushed open. If someone wanted in, they'd have to break in. 

He was still terrified.

All it would take would be a certain mercenary's curiosity to completely ruin his life. He was going to have to move under cover, and see if he could get by without being caught. If Deadpool knew where he lived, there wasn't reason he wouldn't advertise that out in order to get a high price for Peter's head.  

If he wanted to keep things under wraps he was going to have to confront and deal with the mercenary himself, whatever that entailed.

__________

When Peter's next morning appointment came rolling around, he made sure that he ate his fair serving of the chicken he'd been gifted before he started walking towards the donation center. It wasn't a terribly long walk, but it was a boring one. He didn't come back as soon as he could have in order to maintain his usual schedule with Wade in the mornings, preferring his company over the possibility of not getting one of his bonuses. As long as he didn't miss another day he should be able to make it to the remainder of his money. Hopefully. Assuming he didn't get dinged for low proteins. Or maybe they'd boot him if they came to a realization that he was radioactive or something.

Oh, the drama that could arise.

When he made it to the center he checked himself in, going through the eight hundred questions they had to ask him every other day before he was allowed to get his poor finger lanced. Once the computer was satisfied he sighed and turned to head back towards the lab line, smiling when he caught sight of his fellow doner.

"Excited?" Wade smiled.

Peter laughed. "Yeah, nothing like getting stabbed a couple of times to start your morning. I love it."

"See? Not only do you get your machinist itch scratched, but you also get paid to do it." Wade gave him a playful nudge. It was strong enough that Peter was bumped off balance and stumbled a step.

"Yeah right." He shook his head. "I know what a stabbing feels like and I can confirm that I don't enjoy it. Or this. These little stabs also suck."

Wade frowned. "You've been stabbed?" his voice was reasonably laced with concern to which Peter waved him off.

"Wrong place at the wrong time. That's why I'm alive. It's totally fine." He tried to reassure him, playing it off as a mugging gone wrong. It was easy enough to believe, hell he had a kid in his class who'd been stabbed in the cheek as a child by his cousin when they were toddlers. Shit happened, it didn't need to be related to hero stuff.

"Was this recent?"

"Oh, no. Back when I was sixteen." Peter reassured him. And it was true, the first time he'd been stabbed was sometime around then. May had nursed him back to health, under the assumption that he had a really bad flu based on how he favored his stomach and couldn't quite hold anything down. And then there was the fever and . . . you know, everything that comes with a stab wound. In retrospect, it was stupid of him not to come forward with what happened. He should have let her know because he very well could have died after that. But his teenage self was certain that secrecy was the way to go. And now that May was gone, it was just another thing that he regretted. He wished his mom knew who he was, and what he did. He wished he could have told her about what happened, how he'd found him in the hero position, why Ben was killed, the truth about how his best friend was killed, and how everyone around him had such poor luck.

"Earth to Peter, you alright? You look a little shell-shocked." Wade waved a hand in front of his face.

"Yeah, sorry, I'm all good. Just thinking about how stupid I was about handling that whole situation. I never told my mom that I'd been hurt."

Wade raised a brow. "You didn't tell your mom you were stabbed in what, sophomore year of high school? How did you not die?"

"Same reason I'm getting into the Mutant program after my new donor bonus." Peter reminded. "I'm a little special. And luckily I'm special enough that I didn't die."

The man eyed him with a disapproving look, stepping ahead as the line moved along, putting Wade up next. "Considering the stupid shit that I've done, I don't have any right to say shit, but what the fuck dude. You were an exceptionally stupid child."

Peter laughed and looked down at their feet, scuffing his shoe on the tile. "Maybe. I'm book smart though and graduated with honors My friend took valedictorian, but considering I didn't even get to my own graduation I'm glad she took it. In fact, I don't think I'd have been able to stand up in front of all those fucks and say a single positive thing."

"Rough high school years?" Wade asked.

Peter nodded just as one of the techs called out for Wade. The bald man dismissed himself to go take a seat in one of the spinny chairs and Peter only had to wait a couple of minutes before he was taken into the next available spot. Wade was just getting up to walk into his zone when Peter sat down, trying to catch which color the man got.

"Please sign in." the tech said as they pulled out a new tissue, bandaid, the lance, and a tiny little tube.

Peter turned and scanned his fingerprint into the system before offering out the finger he wanted to be stabbed that morning. He was sanitized and the tech poked him before his brain had a chance to process what was happening. Despite how much he liked to complain about this part, it was moderately painless. It was the sore spot left on the pad of your finger for the rest of the day that sucked.

"How's your day?" the stranger asked as they began to squeeze blood out of the small wound, collecting the red drops into the tiny little tube.

"Could be worse," Peter said, taking the small cotton pad to cover his wound while his blood was taken away to separate his proteins and lipids or whatever. He wasn't a med student. He took his bandaid when it was offered to him and turned so the tech had access to his arm for the blood pressure cuff.

"That guy your friend? I can see if we have another card for the blue zone." the tech offered as they went through the blood pressure, temperature, and pulse procedure.

"If you could, that would be nice," Peter admitted.

"Might make your morning a little better?" the tech offered him a smile before he cleaned out the vial that had since turned clear somehow. "Looks good, I'll see if we have another card."

Peter sighed a breath of relief and got up to follow them to the other end of the counter where they sorted through the cards before offering him a blue card and he was sent on his merry way towards the back of the facility.  

"Look who's coming to join." Wade smiled when Peter took the open station next to the man.

"You said you're part of the special program, but that you're a little more specialized right? What does that entail, does everyone in the mutant program have to have a sponsor looking for their specific profile or if you're a mutant do you just get drawn like any other of the programs?" Peter asked as he stuffed his armrest onto his right side before getting comfortable.

"Oh, no. They'll take a donation regardless, but they do actively look for sponsors if they know they've got something unique. I wouldn't be surprised if you end up with some kind of specialization because you have a unique ability, but it's not required." Wade reassured him. "In fact, if you're sponsored, you get a boost in your pay because the sponsor pays a scholarship for your time that's spread out for a contract period."

"Do the contracts ever end?"

"No, but they can. Eventually, some will I'm sure, but it's new enough that no one's completed any of their sciencey shit."

"Huh," Peter muttered, nodding at the woman that came over to sanitize his arm.

"Name and last four, do you have an iodine allergy?"

Peter went through the whole process and was thankful that he got someone who was both nice and very good at their job. The needle went in as painlessly as a giant needle could. Which meant it was an actual pinch and not an 'oh god I can feel it digging around in my arm' sensation.

He laughed to himself. Fuck, he hated this. He really really did, but the pay was so fine. Over a hundred dollars an hour.

Wade gave Peter some time to get into a rhythm with his machine before he tried to continue their chatting. Peter couldn't multitask if he wasn't given a chance to get into the groove of things,  talking threw him off-beat if he didn't have something to focus on first.

"Have any plans for tonight?" Wade eventually asked.

"Um," Peter hesitated, at war with himself. Yes, he really needed to get his photoshoot done tonight so he had something to hand in Jameson's next handful of headlines. The man was as obsessive as Fox News or CNN, only Peter didn't have a hand in politics. Hell, he didn't even vote. So why was he getting as much attention if not more than the president in office? It was weird. Paid enough though. Well, not really. It hardly paid enough. He just didn't have any competition. He should check his email to see if he had any responses to the offers he'd made a couple of weeks ago. And he should start compiling all of his rejected work into social media posts so he could try advertise himself. Maybe he should change his username to something more fun, maybe The Neighborhood Spider-Man, or The Amazing Spider-Man . . .

No that was cringy. He didn't want a tagline. He didn't get to name himself, he better not solidify the public nickname by adding to it.

Shit, Wade was still waiting for an answer.

"Yeah, unfortunately. I have a photoshoot I need to get ready for," couldn't say he needed to do it, which would imply he didn't follow his client's schedule "And a handful of other things. Sorry."

The man shook his head. "Don't be sorry, I could see the life fade out of your eyes. Sorry for asking." He chuckled. "What about immediately after this? Maybe we could go get lunch. On me. I won't make you eat up your hard-earned cash just after you've earned it."

Peter eyed him. "You've already fed me a few times this week with your chicken alone. I can't continue using you like that." He tried to sound like he was joking but he wasn't. And his tone matched his feelings.

"Don't think of it as charity, think of it as a date." the man smiled. "A fun outing between two people who both need protein and appreciate a good meal. I have a steakhouse in mind that I've been wanting to try but I've been too chicken to go in alone, and I don't want to try it via takeout because that really takes away from the whole experience, you know?"

"You're a chicken?" Peter raised a brow.

"Yes, Peter. Are you trying to insinuate something?" Wade replied with a fair serving of sass. "Are big men not allowed a little social anxiety? C'mon, with a face like this?"

His attention was brought to the scars patchworked across the man's face. Peter tended to focus on Wade's eyes, letting them blur out as he studied the character across from him. They seemed to have changed since the last time he'd really looked at them which was interesting. He wanted to know why but wasn't going to ask when Wade was trying to be nonchalant about laying himself out on the table. Peter had a feeling that he wasn't joking about not feeling comfortable in his skin, physically or metaphorically. Being alone would only have unwanted attention.

"Alright," He said softly. "On one condition."

The man sent him an expectant look.

"If they serve dinner rolls, we're getting some to-go. And butter. As much butter as we can get because I'm out and I'm cheap."

"Frugal." The man smiled.

Special thanks to Poiuytre23.

Until next time
~ Shadow-Assassin