Chapter Text
It was a nice late summer day, the air was filled with the scent of freshly cut grass and the promise of rain later on. Children played on the bastketball court outside and screamed with delight as the ball bouncing echoed through the street. May walked in with a box full of cans in her hands, a huge smile on her face and a warmth in her chest as friendly chatter could be heard from every place in the building. The F.E.A.S.T.'s donation drive seemed to be doing better than expected. People had come by in droves to drop all manner of supplies. They were short on volunteers to help sort through the donations but they were managing just fine. It was always heartwarming to see communities come together to help one another.
Despite the good mood surrounding her, she couldn't help but wish that Peter and Miles were here. It had been almost a year since Miles had gone pursuing his Physics degree to Jersey, and almost three years since Peter had founded his own company. May was fondly reminiscing on the past and how much both of the boys had grown, when there was a sudden commotion outside. An angry masculine voice steadily rose higher and higher, accompanied by the definitive sounds of a physical struggle. A crowd started forming, conversations stopped and there were even some whispers of calling the police. Afraid of what the situation might devolve into, May quickly left the box somewhere out of the way and walked fast towards the entrance.
"Just hand them over, kid!", a young man wearing a F.E.A.S.T. staff shirt yelled while he struggled over a box full of cookies with a teen dressed in an old military-green coat with the hood up, despite the hot weather, and baggy, ragged black pants. Strangely, they were barefoot with just socks on. "Let go right now or I'll fu—"
"Jeremy, what are you doing?", May interrupted with exasperation, hands on her hips and a stern frown on her face. Jeremy immediately let go of the box, the teen almost lost their balance as a result of the jarring lack of pull, but they managed to stop their fall in time. They clutched the box to their chest tightly and smiled viciously in victory.
"M-May! I just— He's a thief! He was trying to take the the box and uh—", Jeremy excused himself, glaring at the teen while simultaneously turning imploring puppy eyes at her. As if that would ever work on her.
"Do I need to remind you why you're here and what is F.E.A.S.T.'s purpose in the first place?", May couldn't believe him. Jeremy was a twenty-one year old college student doing community service in their shelter for driving under the influence, so what the hell did he think would happen if someone reported him fighting a teen outside the shelter in broad daylight? May believed in the best of people and giving second chances, so she did want to help him get better. It was just that sometimes he really tested her patience by doing stupid shit like this. Jeremy opened and closed his mouth, muttering halfway finished sentences before he seemed to think better of it.
"I... Sorry, May. I guess I just wasn't thinking...", he finally apologized, embarrassed and properly chastised. Good enough for now.
"Apology accepted, Jeremy. Now, young man, I understand you must be going through rough times, but— Oh dear", May turned to address the troublemaker but in the little time she had taken to speak with Jeremy, the teen had opened the box and was sitting on the sidewalk tearing through the cookies like a raccoon. He looked up when May addressed him, cheeks full of food and crumbs all over his clothing. May took a sharp breath as she saw his face properly for the first time. There was a scar. It had been quite some time since she had seen a third degree burn this close but it was without a doubt an old scar. The bright red scar extended like a spider web from under his left eye down to his chin and slightly over the bridge of his nose. His left ear was misshapen like a boxer's and was slightly smaller than his right. His black hair was long, dirty and looked weird, as if he had tried to give himself a cut without a mirror in hand and as a result the right side of his face was slightly obscured by a curtain of hair but his left side was completely exposed.
"Sorry", he smiled roguishly at her, caught red handed but clearly not in the least bit sorry about what he'd done. His voice sounded rough with disuse and he had to clear his throat a couple of times. At the present moment she couldn't get angry at him, May was more concerned about his well-being than she was upset about losing a couple of cookies.
"It's alright, I don't mind. You must've been really hungry", May smiled kindly at the teen, speaking in a gentle and calm voice. His own smile dropped and he immediately became suspicious of her, his eyes moved between May, Jeremy and the door where a bunch of onlookers gawked at him; he crouched on his legs like he was ready to bolt at the slightest sign of danger. "You know, there's more food inside if you're still hungry, and we've got plenty of space if you're in need of a place to sleep tonight"
People walked by: most of them walking fast towards whatever destination they were heading off to, some of them staring curiously at the scene in a spectrum of curiosity and concern. The cars on the street flew by as fast as always, the drivers seemingly uncaring that this was a residential area. May's phone was ringing inside her pocket but she left it unattended, her focus at the time on the boy infront of her. His fists opened and closed while he seemed to think about the offer, the mistrust clear in the tight clench of his shoulders and the way he looked at everything with sharp eyes.
"My name is May, by the way", she said as calm and gentle as before, but the boy still looked like he might bolt down the street. She wanted to help him. "You're obviously not obligated to anything, I really just—"
"I don't want to be any trouble", the boy interrupted her sharply, in a manner that others would consider aggressive and rude. He looked young, probably as young as Peter had been when he'd been bitten and turned into a superhuman overnight.
"You're no trouble, honey. I promise"
The shelter's warmth was suffocating. The walls were spray painted with murals of smiling people holding hands and slightly cheesy messages like 'love is the cure' in big, bold letters. Too welcoming. Too bright and cheerful. It was disconcerting and uncomfortable. He was on his third cheese and ham sandwich, looking at the walls with a critical eye, when May came by to check up on him, asking him if he needed anything else and if he'd already decided to stay the night. He didn't know what to do or what to say. May's gentle smile and caring touch felt... wrong. It was an unfamiliar and uncertain terrain that he didn't know how to journey through.
"I dunno", he mumbled around his last bite of sandwich, avoiding eye contact at all costs. People kept staring at him. May's eyes stayed kind. His left leg bounced in a fast, uncoordinated rhythm and his hands itched with the sudden urge to do something.
"Well, do let me know if you change your mind, dear", May sighed, but smiled sweetly as she disappeared into an office and shut the door behind her. Finally, he was left alone.
This was his chance to leave without making a scene. It would be for the best. People who lived in the shelter and the volunteers that helped around kept sending him disgusted looks whenever they caught sight of his face, sneering and talking in whispers between each other. May had said that he could stay, but it was obvious he wasn't welcome here. Something hit him on the back of his head and dropped with a metallic clang, it didn't hurt but it did startle him back into awareness. When he turned around, an empty can sat on the ground and there was a group of teens standing at the entrance of the cafeteria. Their leader, a tall blond girl with a chipped tooth and acne across her cheeks, stood with a look of pure hatred in her eyes while the rest of them cowered behind her with barely concealed fear.
"We don't want muties here", the girl said with a sneer, looking him up and down as if his appearance was an insult in itself.
Silence was his only answer, having really no need to involve himself with a bunch of stupid kids over a word that meant nothing to him. He stood up and they all took a step back, some of them gasping in shock, even the blonde that had seemed so fearless just a second ago. That made him chuckle involuntarily but he quickly got his laughter under control. Right, he was leaving without making a scene. He walked calmly, sizing them from down to the top: dressed as they were, with second-hand clothes and fed with the help of others, yet still willing to stand there demanding that he leave while visibly shaking on their own two feet and on the verge of just running away.
He passed without even speaking a word to them. As he left the cafeteria he pocketed a bag of cookies from the same box he'd already stolen from, and then he was on his way out of the shelter with the teens following behind him. The closer they got to the front entrance, the bolder the little group grew: they started laughing loudly, making a ruckus that made all the adults turn to look at them with apprehension. None of them stepped in to stop them from yelling or hurling more objects at him. It was all the same to him, but he would have preferred if they had just left him alone. When the little humilliating parade was over and he finally stepped out to the streets, something unexpected was already waiting there for him.
A group of soldiers pointing their guns straight to his face. He recognized their uniforms and helmets. Somewhat, somehow. He had seen them before when he'd escaped but he didn't actually understand who they worked for: the police? Military? The FBI? The CIA?
"Put your hands up!", a chorus of masculine voices screamed in unison. It was actually kind of weird. Did they rehearse how to say it at the same time? The men were still talking but he didn't particularly cared to listen: it was all non-sensical bullshit that meant nothing to him anyway. "... Subject D-32, come now without resistance and we will not open fire"
The soldiers cocked their guns at the same time and aimed towards a different target: the group of teens that were still right behind him. The little shits were shamelessly using his body as a meatshield. Fuckers. He'd already labelled them as cowards inside his own mind, but it was nice to see them crying like little babies. Just to confirm in real life. Big mean blondie was even panting and whimpering like a dying dog, body wracked with shivers from unfiltered fear. She was probably thinking of the probability of her death right in that moment, and really, why wouldn't she? He looked right into her dumb eyes with nothing but contempt for her stupid decisions, because why the hell had she and all her stupid friends needed to follow him right to the fucking door? He groaned in an exaggerated and prolonged manner.
"Ughhhh... You're all so fucking annoying", he sighed, feeling like he should have just said yes to May when he had the chance. It would have been nice, he supposes. To sleep in a somewhat decent bed with a roof over his head. The fantasy disappeared as soon as it popped into his head. Unreachable now.
He threw his body at the soldiers. They immediately opened fire, uncaring and without needing further instruction, their entire attack was concentrated solely on him. A hundred bullets went through his torso and punctured his organs. Blood poured out and drenched the street, the walls of the building, and the stupid kids that stood there with gaping mouths and watched him die.
Everything was turning dull and muffled as he laid there dying: sounds, colors, smells. As his body shut down slowly, calm and quiet finally reigned in his mind and body. It was a familiar feeling, comforting. The last things he heard before death claimed him was the static coming from a radio, the kids screaming and crying as if they were the ones that had gotten peppered with bullets, and then...
"Target has been sucessfuly subdued"
Darkness swallowed him whole. Time stopped having meaning and there was finally nothing.
But not for long. Never for long.
Slightly disoriented, he came back to the soldiers carrying his body like roadkill. They hadn't managed to get him far and had yet to notice he was alive again. A multitude of people were screaming all manner of things, their words jumbled together and the confusing shrill myriad of noise was starting to give him a headache. His plan was really simple: he was going to let them take him and continue playing dead until he got a chance to escape. But, through the chaos, the sound of a voice rising above the rest didn't give him a choice but to act right in that moment.
"Murderers!", May yelled as she followed close behind the group of soldiers. She was carrying her phone in hand, presumably taking photos and video of his killers. "He was just an innocent boy! Does he not have the same right—"
"Stop", the soldiers called out as a group, menacingly pointing their guns right at May. "Or we will open fire"
Fucking hell. He hadn't wanted to be a bother...
Acting fast, he leaned back his weight and shrugged off the two who were carrying him. With a jump, he kicked both men on the head, cracking their necks easily. May gasped, horrified beyond words, but there was hardly any time to feel guilty. He carried her away. She protested and tried to reason with him, but he was too fast for her to even attempt to pull away from him. He ran up the walls of the building and left her on the roof. Once he was certain that she would be safe, he gave her a small smile and went back to the fight. This place had been way too nice for him anyway.
"Wait! Stop!", but he was already jumping back down, throwing his entire weight on the shoulders of a soldier.
The soldier fell while actively shooting at him, but a swift kick to the cranium ensured the guy stayed down. Bullets flew from every direction, people screamed and ran for cover in any way they could find. And in the middle of all that chaos, he stood with a calculating gaze. His speed took him from one end of the courtyard to the next and all the while he didn't stop to second guess any of his moves. If he stopped, if he hesitated, everyone would die and he knew that well. His own injuries barely registered inside his mind, bullet wounds had become inconsequential to him after discovering that he was practically immortal. Necks were snapped with a single punch to the jaw, ribs were pulverised under his feet and any limb that got caught in the storm of his being were broken beyond recognition.
He heard people begging for mercy, people crying in sheer terror. The people from the shelter, no longer afraid of the soldiers who had threatened their lives. They were afraid of him, and he couldn't blame them for it.
An eerie silence permeated the air as he stood there catching his breath. The soldiers were dead, or at least, they seemed like it. In any case, this wasn't time to stand there and find out. His eyes searched the roof of the building, looking for May. He didn't know why: maybe to make sure she was okay, or maybe he wanted to apologize for all the dead bodies that were now littered around the shelter.
A flash of something went through his mind, the tingling feeling that warned him about danger, and he quickly turned around to face a new threat. Big mean blonde was standing right behind him, holding one of the fallen soldier's guns. She was pointing it straight at him. Her breathing was coming out in uneven pants, her face was pale and she was completely covered in sweat. Blondie was shaking, and her eyes, though rimmed with unshed tears, were glaring at him with unrestrained hatred.
"Get the fuck out of here. We don't want your kind here. You ruin everything", she muttered, her voice dripping with disdain. Her jaw was clenched so tight, he could hear as her teeth grinded roughly on each other.
"You don't even know how to use that thing", he mocked her with a grin. And, as if to prove him wrong, she snarled and pulled the trigger. She yelped as the recoil immediately threw her ass down to the concrete while the echo of the bullet firing defeaned her. She clutched her ears and groaned in pain. He looked down where the bullet had lightly grazed his leg. He managed to see May just as he leapt away through the rooftops. He hoped she understood the unspoken apology in his eyes.
The sun was just beginning to set when Miles drove out to the shelter. He was only in the city for the weekend and he'd already made plans with his friends to see Gwen's latest concert that same night. He was ready, dressed in his best clothes. There was a little giftbox inside his pocket, just a small necklace, that logically he knew weighted less than 100 grams, but he felt as though it were heavier than an entire building. Miles was running and errand for his parents, he just needed to drop by F.E.A.S.T. first to bring out a couple of things, say hello to May, and then he would be well on his way to see his friends.
The bike's motor mixed in with the music blasting over his headphones was a welcome white noise in the middle of traffic as he waited for people to start moving. The noise soothing the nostalgia of being back, and the slight nerves he felt over seeing Gwen again.
The last time they had been together things had ended... friendly, but it was definitely awkward between them at the moment. Neither of them knew how to approach the subject. Every time they tried it was almost as if the correct words got stuck and they stumbled clumsily after them, doing their best not to accidentaly hurt each other. He was afraid of messing everything up. Obviously, he still had feelings for Gwen and it hurt to think about the rejection, but he would rather not lose her friendship over something as silly as a high school crush. He second guessed the gift he'd brought her: would it be too much? Would it just make everything weirder? It was just a little thing he'd bought on a second-hand market. The necklace's colors had just reminded him of the extravagant colors she used to dye her hair back in high school. At the time he thought it'd be a funny gift, now Miles was afraid that he would look like the guy who didn't know when to give up.
As the cars infront of him finally started to move, he sighed and continued on his drive with an ultimatum to the anxious thoughts going on loops around his head. Gwen had personally asked him to go to the concert. Which meant that she wanted to see him, that she still valued his support and friendship. He would just hand her over the gift like it was no big deal: because it wasn't. He was just giving a gift to his friend. That's what he chose to focus on to finally put those thoughts to rest.
F.E.A.S.T. was just a few streets away, when his phone started ringing and the call was answered automatically. Jefferson had insisted that he always had that set up when he was driving on the bike, not wanting him to risk looking down at the screen for even a second; as such, Miles had no idea on who was calling in the first place. Could have been his friends, asking for last minute rides to the venue. His parents wanting to know where he was and if he'd already dropped the things at the shelter. Maybe even Peter or May.
"Hello?", Miles asked tentatively. He was driving slower than usual so he was also extremely aware of how long until he reached the shelter. Among the things Rio had given him was a tupper filled with Bacalao encebollado for May. He really, really didn't want it to spill inside his backpack, the smell would cling forever and he would rather save himself the headache.
"Miles, oh thank goodness", May's breathless voice sobbed through the speaker and he was immediately tense. Alarms blared inside his head. He sped up and prayed the tupper wouldn't open with the sharp turns he was taking.
"Mrs. Parker, what happened? Are you alright?", he was a few streets away, come on, he had to make it.
"Your parents said you were coming...", she said in between gasps of air, confused and almost as if she hadn't really registered what he'd asked. May wasn't the kind of person that got swept up into a panic over nothing. Miles had seen her calm and collected in the middle of evacuation, he had seen her standing strong and unwavering in the face of a super villain threatening her life and her family. Whatever had happened must have been awful to have her in this state. "There was a boy... And... Oh God... There's so much blood...", she cried out in distress and Miles could feel his body turning cold with dread.
"I'll be right there, don't worry! I'm just a few minutes away—"
"You have to help him, please", May interrupted him, the strength back in her voice. "Please, Miles. He saved my life"
The world went past like a blur as he jumped through buildings as fast as lighting. His body contorted and moved smooth like butter through difficult spaces, instinctively taking the easier paths that would lead him away from the people chasing him. He avoided the big, crowded avenues of New York City as much as he could, opting to go through narrow alleyways and tightly close apartment buildings that offered more coverage. His legs shook slightly from the exertion and his chest ached with every breath he took. A barrage of bullets fired from above, barely missing his head. Most of them impacting on walls, some of them lodging themselves on his back but that couldn't stop him. Still, the blood loss was starting to get to him. He was stumbling every now and then. His grip was growing weaker and his vision was turning blinding white. He needed to hide and recover, otherwise he'll be in big—
"Hey, you! Let me help! I'm a friend!"
Peter swore out loud as Miles' voicemail went off again, frustrated. He redialed the teenager with increased urgency as he swung through the city while he heard the Police radio transmissions through his earpiece...
Suspect going fast towards Brooklyn Bridge. Spider-Man is on scene but has yet to capture him. The unidentified people on the helicopter are actively shooting the Suspect but have yet to bring him down and have thus far injured eight civilians as a result. Requesting permission to shoot to avoid further civilian casualties...
...As Miles' voicemail greeted him again, Peter gave up on calling his fellow Spider-Man and focused on joining him as quickly as he could.
Had he had known that Miles would come back from Jersey this weekend, he would have told him everything that there was to know about the current mission Peter (plus Wade) had taken. He had foolishly postponed telling the younger man anything about it, since he knew that Miles would have loathed the idea of working with a renowned terrorist like Nathan Summers.
Hell, Peter still had his doubts about the man. Maybe it was a stupid thing to do, but he kind of trusted Wade's judgement. If Wade said that a renowned mutant extremist terrorist was someone that could be trusted then... Well, in retrospective, maybe that had been a really stupid thing to do afterall.
But it couldn't be helped. It was personal.
Summers had requested something quite simple of them: capture a teen that had escaped from a secret Alchemax laboratory and hand them back over. The Mutant Messiah (as Wade liked to call him) had promised that he would not harm the kid in any way, that he wanted to help them. But when Summers refused to elaborate how he was going to help them or why it was important in the first place to recapture the escapee, Peter started to feel his Spider-sense tingling.
Mutant terrorist aside, Alchemax was already a huge red flag in itself. After the founders had died, the damn company had been supposedly dissolved, all its data and research destroyed. Yet it seemed that hadn't been enough to keep it gone. Osborn and Octavius had been dead for almost five years now, and, somehow, they kept being a huge pain in the ass.
Peter knew that whoever had taken their company's name could not be doing it with good intentions. Whatever had happened to that kid could not be anything good, and Peter had made it his own personal mission to aid them in any way he could. He just hoped he wasn't too late.
Miles dodged with a yelp as yet another burst of bullets came from the helicopter pursuing them both. Miles had avoided injuries so far, but the other teen had already gotten peppered with bullets multiple times. And yet, he kept going. What this meant, he did not know, but it would be for the better if Miles caught him sooner rather than later.
"Hey, watch it! I'm on your side!", Miles yelled indignantly at the people on the helicopter. The armors they wore closely resembled SWAT standard uniforms, but he was starting to suspect that they were something more like rogue mercenaries of some kind. Whatever the case may be, he wasn't about to hand this kid over to anyone. There were things he wanted to ask them first. And, he also wanted to thank him for saving May and all the people at the shelter. He must be a good person if he was willing to protect others over saving his own skin.
"C'mon! Let's just talk, yeah? I promise everything will be alright!", Miles yelled over for what must have been the hundredth time, he had yet to receive a response of some kind, but he was kind of an optimist like that.
"Fuck off! Just leave me alone!", the kid howled furiously as he dropped ten stories below and twisted mid-air just to give him the middle finger.
Oh! Progress! If I can get him to talk, then I can get him to listen!
"Nah, you could come with me and I could help you though!", Miles dive bombed and, finally! He was able to grab the kid.
They struggled as they fell through the air, the teen managed to shake off his grip but Miles refused to lose him now that he had finally caught him. Wrestling while free falling wasn't exactly his idea of fun, but it happened so often that he was throughly used to it. Miles didn't want to hurt the boy, but there was no other choice as the teen didn't have such qualms about hurting him. They struggled. Pushed and pulled each other. Strangely, despite his previous injuries, the kid was able to meet him punch by punch, kick by kick, with the same strength and resilience that Peter could.
Who was this?
The helicopter followed them at a steady pace, the loud blaring of its blades muffled the sounds of the city below them and made concentrating that much harder. The kid was bleeding profusely, so much so that the blood made him slippery enough to escape from Miles' grip time and time again. He had been so focused on not losing the kid, that he failed to listen to his Spider-sense as it warned him about the danger still lurking above them. By the time he realized, it was already too late.
"Look out!", the kid screamed as he gave a final kick that took the breath out of his lungs as Miles slammed into a building. Bricks fell around him as he wheezed and tried to regain his breathing.
It all happened too fast for anyone to be able to stop it. Everything went by like a blur and yet he could see every excrutiating detail through tunnel vision. The teen desperately trying to get away, twisting in the air a second too late, too slow to dodge. His terrified eyes. A rocket being launched from the helicopter by a tall, slender person dressed in an all white combat armor and wearing a helmet with a painted skull. The kid getting hit by the rocket mid-air. The entire left side of his body exploding into a horrifying spray of blood and guts. His lifeless body dropping into an alleyway with a thundering thud and a horrible squelch. And then, the helicopter blades deafening sound as it went past him to retrieve the dead body.
Miles couldn't breathe.
Wade ran as fast as he could, shooting straight for the alleyway he had just seen the teen drop into, cursing Nate's name to Hell and back. People ran blindly in terror, effectively blocking the streets and not allowing Wade to go as fast as he would have liked. He felt as though he were trying to walk against the ocean or trying to walk through a sand dune, except somebody's life was on the line at the moment and every second he wasted trying not to hurt civilians and instead speying poetry about how hard it was to walk against a crowd, was a second added to the agony of that kid.
"HEY, I'M WALKIN' HERE!", Wade screamed as he pushed an entire crowd out of the way, making them trip all over each other. He ran off immediately, jumping over the mountain of bodies.
"FUCK OFF, ASSHOLE!", some lady screamed from the bottom of the now pile of civilians.
He had been following close behind Spidey's boy since pretty much the start of everything, just waiting for an opportunity to intervene and catch the kid before Spidey Jr could start asking too many questions. Sure, there had been times when he had lost both kids through their game of chase, but he had almost immediately been able to find them again when he heard the sound of guns firing. It was all fun and games, watching Spidey Jr get his ass handed while they both evaded some rookie no-name mercenaries... Until it wasn't. Now Wade really regretted not staying on top of everything. He had lost the target. The kid was dead.
The unfortunately nostalgic, rancid smell of garbage mixed with blood greeted him as he saw the scene in that disgusting alleyway. For once it wasn't the smell of his own blood mixing in with the trash, but in a sick way he really wished it was. There he was. The escapee they had been trying and failing to catch for almost a month. He really wished he could see him running away again, even if it meant another failed capture, because this was just horrible.
The kid was on his back, his body twisted and unnatural. The entire left side of his body was blown to shit, leaving muscle, bones and organs exposed. Teeth laid scattered barely illuminated by the setting sun, his jaw bone had torn through his cheek and his tongue lolled out of the hole. There was no movement, not even an unvoluntary twitch of a muscle as rigor mortis took hold.
Wade was used to seeing dead bodies. He had seen all kinds of grotesque scenes in his time as military and as a mercenary. In the years before he decided to stop being such a waste of a human, Wade had been the cause of a lot worse. But no matter what things he saw or what he did, it never failed to make him feel sick when it was a kid laying dead right in front of him.
"Fuck!", Wade hissed through his teeth as he kicked a garbage can nearby, bending it in half with his strength. The money Nathan had promised him didn't seem to register in his mind as he kept cursing outloud. Beyond the alley, Wade heard people starting to scream nervously as the unmistakable sound of steel-toed boots marched through the streets. A couple of guns were fired off in warning, undoubtedly as an intimidating tactic to get the civilians out of the way. More screams. Explosions. All of them adding to a chaotic background noise that only made him get angrier at the frankly shit-mercenaries currently terrorizing New York.
"They're fuckin' dead! Just lemme get my hands on these fuckin' pieces of shit, I'm gonna make 'em regret ever being born", he took out his katanas and readied himself for a fight, gearing up to sprint out of the alleyway. His blood was boiling and he was close to losing it completely. Best friends forever vows be damned: Peter could deal with a moral meltdown or two—
A cough right behind him stopped him dead in his tracks.
No. There was no way. He was hearing things. He was hallucinating.
A groan. Another cough, more violent and wet sounding than the last.
Wade slowly turned around and gasped dramatically as he saw the kid struggling to drag his body with his only remaining arm through the alley, guts dragging into the disgusting pavement underneath and leaving a bloody trail behind him. Wade really couldn't believe his eyes. The kid shouldn't be alive. Even on the most miraculous of cases, he shouldn't be able to move at all. Half of his body had been blown off, for fuck's sake! He should be agonizing on death's front door. The only way that he would be able to do this was if...
Wade sheathed his katanas back and took slow, measured steps towards the teen.
Please, be wrong. You're wrong all the time. You're a fuckin' dumbass. Please, be wrong this time too.
But when Wade came close enough, he saw that there was no doubt about it. The kid's body was regenerating. Bones, muscles, and skin melded back together. Wounds stopped bleeding and closed on their own. Organs healed themselves and popped back in place. It was revolting to watch, but Wade was actually relieved that at least the kid was alive. Even though the implications of what he was seeing were disturbing to say the least.
So this is why Nate was so adamant that he personally took care of this. That fucking piece of shit 300 kilo mutant asshole owed him an explanation... and the 30 million dollars he'd promised upfront. Nate had never confirmed anything, only given Wade and Peter the most bare of information so they could carry the mision. However, Wade was good at connecting the unspoken dots, as he had known Nate for a good ten or twelve years by now, and he never got this fucking stubborn unless it was something that the Great Mutant Messiah thought would make Wade become a better man or if it was something that had to be done for the Greater Good of Humanity.
So in Wade's mind, this whole debacle was like this: The teen had run away from an Alchemax secret laboratory and there was no doubt that he had been an experiment subject. Octavius and Osborn were awful people, who only worked with other horrible people; who was to say that the same people that had brought back the Alchemax name wouldn't delve into something as disgusting as the program that had given Wade his own powers? Yeah, there was no doubt in his head. Those two had been absolute nutjobs when they were alive, they would have done anything just for—
"Get the fuck back, shit-stain!", the kid shouted, bringing Wade back to the present from his thoughts quite rudely.
"Hey, language! Fuckin' kids these days", Wade tried to joke but the teen just hissed back at him like an animal. He actually hissed like a feral cat. Wade shrugged it off, he knows the drill. Sorta. This is bound to be one of those stories where him and Spidey raise a sorta-clone, sorta-their-child together. Perhaps the kid in this story was kinda feral but he could work with that. "Aight', kid. Everythin' is gonna be alright", Wade said in an overly-cheesy voice, like a bad actor in a terrible family movie. "You're gonna be okay. I'm going to help you, so, just stay chill and --"
The kid growled, twisting his body impossibly fast and flicked his remaining wrist at him, Wade barely had a second to dodge before-- THWIP! SNAP! BANG! The sound echoed in the alleyway. A bright red web hit the already abused garbage can behind him and glued it to the wall, compressing it like a soda can. Wade stared at it dumbfounded for a second.
"What the fuck! That is soo not fuckin' fair!", Wade yelled indignantly. He could deal with a sorta clone of himself, but-- A kid that somehow had HIS and Spidey's powers!? Now that was way too much.
Wade turned back around with all the intention to keep on making more Fourth Wall Breaking jokes; but then, he saw the agony on the teen's face and he immediately stopped himself before springing back into action. Right, this wasn't the time to make jokes. Wade crouched down and took a closer look at every wound. The kid had moved too fast while his body had been in the middle of mending itself, two ribs had disloged from place and were currently stabbing into what was a previously fresh regenerated set of lungs. The teen struggled to breathe, his face turning deadly pale blue.
"Hey, just so y'know", Wade said as he took hold of the ribs and looked at the kid in the eyes. "This is gonna hurt like hell, and you're probably going to die again, but I'm tryin' to help here so... I'm really sorry"
With that piece said, Wade yanked the bones out as quickly as he could and watched impassible as the teen's lungs collapsed and he suffocated. It was agony to watch but Wade forced himself to keep watching until the end. The kid hissed, showed his teeth, and glared at him with pure anger until... he stopped trashing about and went limp. Wade watched with amounting dread, counting the seconds and praying that those damn mercenaries took their sweet ass time getting there. They were already taking a while, if they could walk even slower and let the teen come back from Death's sweet embrace, then, Wade could kick their asses with a clean conscience knowing that he hadn't—
The lung inflated back again and the kid let out a horrible gasp, coughing a little as he could finally breathe.
"Oh, thank fuck", Wade sighed, relieved. He looked over the teen's injuries and watched as they finally closed around his torso. It was kinda fascinating to watch, like a lava lamp or marble dye videos... but also, it was really fucking gross. Was this how it looked when Wade was regenerating? Huh, no wonder Spidey threw up the first time he saw it in action. It seemed like the worst of his wounds were closed, but his arm and leg had yet to grow back.
"Who...", the kid tried to ask but started coughing violently. Wade tried to help him sit up but the kid pushed him off with an impressive amount of strength for someone who was still on the mend. Damn, Wade always knew that he and Spidey would make strong babies. The kid wiggled until his back hit the wall, Wade stayed on the opposite one and they both stared at each other. "Who the fuck are you people!?", the kid screamed and hit the wall behind him in frustration, cracking the bricks and making slight sediment rain down on them. "Why won't you just leave me—"
The kid's left side of his face finished healing and Wade stared. Angry red mottled skin, strangely smooth and bumpy at different places. Scars that wouldn't heal despite the obvious healing factor. The kid was still talking, rambling through a knot in his throat and glaring, spitting curses and hissing like an animal.
Wade reached up behind him and took off his mask. The kid stopped talking and stared back.
"I told ya, I'm tryin' to help... And I'm really, really sorry"