Archive of Our Own ^beta

“Okay, bitches!” Wade claps his hands together. “Let’s get this party started.”

“Who are you calling ‘bitches’?” Johnny whines, which of course he does. A day where Johnny Storm is not being the worst, whiniest bitch on the East Coast is a day where the subways smell like Glow by J.Lo and Wade’s ass doesn’t itch. AKA, a day that does not fucking exist.

“Silence, Bitch Torch,” Wade loudly talks over the ensuing complaints. “No, shut up for real, I don’t care, I didn’t bring you all here to listen to you cry.”

“Why did you bring us all here?” Mattycakes asks, tilting his head. “I mean, the invitation in braille was a nice touch but—”

“Wait, you got an invite? Deadpool kidnapped me!" Johnny yelps indignantly.

“That’s because you won’t answer my texts,” Wade chastises.

“What? You have never texted me. Ever.”

Wade thinks about it. “Huh. Well, you didn’t text me back the couple of times I considered it.”

“That’s–!”

“I have brought you all here,” Wade repeats loudly, “for a very important mission.”

“Hold up,” Negasonic Teenage Pain in the Ass pipes up. “You said there’d be food. And a pit fight.”

“Hi Wade!” Yukio chirps beside her.

“Hi Yukio! And yes, I did say that, sweetums, because I knew it was the only way I was going to get your emo ass out of the house. I am coming to you now as an honest man to say that I lied. In fact, 80—no, 99% of what I told you this was about was a lie.”

There’s a chorus of groans from the peanut gallery. Wade stomps his foot.

“It’s for a good reason, I promise!”

“Wade,” Colossus says, “Perhaps we should work on your communication skills. It would be much better if—”

“Um, Mr. Pool, sir,” Kid Spidey says, “If this isn’t a free food situation, I really need to be getting home...”

Wade snorts. “Of course there’s free food, Junior. As if Spidey would ever forgive me if I let his only child starve.”

“I’m not his child,” Kid Spidey says, “But word, okay.”

Wade claps again. “Now, as I was saying. I have a mission for you all.”

“Yeah, about that,” Bitch Torch says. “I get why you’d want us heroes for a mission, but what the hell are they doing here?”

He gestures to the other side of the room, where Wade’s other special guests are gathered.

“Yeah, Deadpool,” Black Cat says archly. “Why are we here?”

“Enlighten us fast, Wilson, before my patience runs out,” Vulture snaps.

“I am trying to tell you,” Wade hisses. “Honestly, nobody has any manners nowadays.”

Wade pauses for dramatic effect, and holds out his hands.

“Spider-Man.”

A car door slams somewhere outside, some bird tweets obnoxiously, and there’s the faint creak of someone’s chair as they shift uncomfortably. Probably Colossus’s, the enormous bastard.

“What…about him?” asks Captain Marvel, looking absolutely gorgeous as usual. God, how is her hair so perfect all the time?

“Baby boy needs a vacation. I’m talking white beaches, crystal clear water, mai-tais the size of his head served directly to his lounge chair by me in a cute little hula skirt and nothing else.”

Wade elects to ignore the groans of disgust that elicits.

“The problem I am running into here, is that I cannot accomplish those things in New York City and because of you bitches,” Wade gestures to the right side of the room, “Spidey is having a hard time with the idea of me whisking him to the Caribbean—”

—“Don’t you mean ‘kidnap’,” Johnny mutters—

“—Now, I know that about 90% of you over there just got a little half-chub at the idea of Spider-Man being MIA for a week, and—you know. I’ve just realized the gender gap in Spidey’s rogue gallery. Is it more sexist that this isn’t equal or to have Spidey punching more ladies—”

“Get to the point,” Black Cat interrupts.

“Right. My point! I need all of you fine, villainous, weirdly all animal-themed criminals to chill the fuck out for a week. Hell, take a vacay too! Go see a movie, do the NY tourist thing and plague Beacon for a few days, I've heard it’s nice this time of year. Whatever you want, I genuinely do not care as long as you are being moderately less obvious about it.”

Wade spins to the left side of the room.

“Now, as for you all, we all know we can’t trust those shifty bitches (wait, god, am I the sexist here? Has bitches gone gender neutral? Stay on target, Wade) for a single hot minute, so, your job, Super Squares, is to keep an eye on those fucks and make sure that the city stays in one piece while I get our favorite spider-themed vigilante some much needed R&R. Capiche?”

“You want us to…patrol?” War Machine says slowly. “You know we already do that.”

Wade makes a high-pitched, annoyed whistle. “No, Tin Can 2.0, you do not. I will be generous and allow that Daredevil patrols and so does Kid Spidey (you’re doing amazing, sweetie). The rest of you lazy super-powered freaks wait for wormholes in the sky, massive third act battles, or literally Thanos to pay attention to shit. I need you all to focus your big brain A-Lister energy to the shit that Spidey deals with all day, which, may I remind you, is all the shit you ignore and let him handle. So consider this me calling in all of the many favors you owe him for covering your asses for the last ten years.”

Wade claps his hands again. “Any questions?”

“Say we do what you want and ‘chill’,” Doctor Tentacles asks snidely. “What’s in it for us?”

“Oh!” Wade says brightly. He smacks his forehead. “Silly me. I forgot to mention the perks!”

Wade drops the smile. “The perks are that I do not hunt you down and dismember you, slowly, piece by piece, for hours until you’re begging for death. Got it?”

The silence is significantly longer. Professor Cthulhu breaks eye contact first, looking down and away. Colossus’s chair creaks ominously.

“Yeah, uh,” Rhino starts. Oh boy, questions from Aleksei, here’s a treat. “You, uh. Said Beacon is nice?”

Wade beams at him. “I sure did, snookums! And you can get there on the Metro North, my sweet metal Rhino. Anyone else?”

The quiet sounds pretty damn agreeable to Wade. “Excellent! Now, for my begrudging enhanced coworkers, I have painstakingly created a sign-up sheet for patrol. Please select what time you’ll be taking and initial it, please and thank you.”

“Is this paper…pink?” Hawkeye (the grumpy one) asks, squinting at it. Hawkeye (the cool one) just rolls her eyes and pulls out a pen.

“And scented,” Wade confirms happily. “Once everyone’s signed up for a shift, you can go get pizza from Dopinder in the lobby.”

Wade is nothing but a man of his word.

Surprisingly, though, Kid Spidey isn’t the first out the door to pizza glory (that honor goes to Negasonic Teenage Buttbrain, but she does at least sign up for three shifts). He lingers way after the Sinister Suck-asses leave, and most of the Super Squares.

“Hey, DP,” Kid Spidey starts. Wade tilts his head. “I uh, just wanted to say thanks.”

“Obviously, kiddo. Wasn’t gonna bring you here and not feed you. I know how hard those spider metabolisms work.”

Kid Spidey rubs the back of his head. “Oh, yeah. Thanks for that too, but, uh. I meant for this. The boss really does need a break.”

He sure does. Between finishing out his PhD, work stress, big Marvel Universe Events, the slog of every day petty criminals and his rogue gallery shenanigans, Peter’s been run ragged. His baby boy is on fumes, and Wade’s had his absolute limit of the dark, bruised circles under his eyes.

Wade winks at him. “Only the best for Spideys.”

Kid Spidey reaches out to give him a coveted fistbump and Wade has to bite back a squeal.

“Yeah. Thanks, Pool.”

“God, I needed this,” Peter slurs, seventy-two hours later. He’s laid out on his tummy, his voice muffled in the crook of his arm while Wade rubs more sunscreen onto his profoundly melanin-deficient baby’s back.

“Yeah, you did,” Wade agrees warmly. “We’ve got a whole week of just this, baby. No problems, no worries. Just you, me, the ocean, and bottomless mai-tais.”

“I’m still mad about the kidnapping,” Peter mumbles. It’s somewhat undercut by the groan of pleasure he lets out as Wade digs his thumbs into the still-tense muscles of his lower back.

“Uh-huh. I’m very, very, sorry,” Wade lies. Peter snorts. He lifts his head to levy a narrow eye at Wade.

“Do I even want to know how you got the Avengers, Defenders, Fantastic Four, and the X-Men to take up patrol shifts?”

Wade clutches a hand to his chest. “You wound me, honeybunch. I simply asked very nicely and threw them a pizza party.”

Peter rolls his eyes, but settles back down. “Fine, don’t tell me. I’ve decided I don’t care as long as you keep, hnng, doing that with your hands.”

“Whatever you want, baby boy,” Wade murmurs, happily obliging.

Only the best for his baby.