Chapter Text
Days spent in the cataclysmic void between life and death pass like pages fluttering in the wind. Cacophony turns into monotony, chaos into serenity. Years are seconds, seconds are eternities, and eternities are terminable. In the boundless confines of infinity, meaning itself loses all value. Everything is nothing is everything, and through it all, destiny persists.
Or, in other words, Wade is suuuuper fucking bored.
Not that he can say, for certain, that he understands what boredom is. Stuck as he’s been in this cruel sort of limbo, Wade has long forgotten what it’s like to feel anything but immense listlessness. He’s found ways to pass the time, to be sure, but they amount to flickers of light in the abyssal chasm of desolation. Sparks of intrigue in an otherwise endless night.
Still, they’re something.
Take this: A portly, sweating man in an expensive business suit ends an important call with a false sense of cheer so he can stumble into a nearby side street. His good mood vanishes as he gasps, clutching at his chest. He pats gracelessly at the front of his jacket before withdrawing a chattering bottle of pills. His shaking hands pour capsules onto the ground before his fingers catch at one to slip it into his mouth. He swallows it dry.
It’s too late. This, Wade knows beyond all other truths. Just like he always does.
He steps forward, out of the shadows. “Albert.”
The portly man, Albert, shocks upright. “Wh-who? Who’s there?”
Wade steps forward again so that he’s standing in a beam of light, and Albert stumbles backward.
“You!” he cries in a whisper. “It’s you!”
Even these dramatic reveals are colorless, now. Wade can remember a time when he would carefully plot these moments, choreographing them to gleeful precision. They’re just a script to follow at this point. “Me.”
“You’re not real!” Albert stammers, looking around desperately. “You—you’re made up! I’m dreaming. That’s what this is.”
Wade sighs. At least this one recognizes him; sometimes, he has to introduce himself first, which wastes valuable time. “I’m real, Al. Always have been, always will be.”
Albert pales. “I’m not—it’s not—I can’t, I have to—”
“I know.” Of course he does. He always knows. “Why do you think I’m here?”
Albert rests his hand over his jacket pocket again, face slack with understanding. He stares down at his pill bottle, and all at once, the tension seeps from his body. “So this is it, is it?”
“This is it,” Wade confirms. “Don’t worry, I’ll take care of the package for you.”
Albert’s hand clenches over the lapel of his jacket, crinkling the fabric. He digs into the inside pocket and retrieves a small, inconspicuous thumb drive. “I suppose there’s no point in hiding it. What will you do with it?”
Wade looks past Albert, to the street beyond and the life bustling along it. It makes him look pensive and wise, he knows. “Take it where it needs to go. Obviously.”
Albert’s inhale is audible. “You’ll… you’ll take it to Oscorp? You’ll let them know?”
Wade turns his head and stares at Albert, knowing that the blank white eyes of his mask are utterly expressionless. “I will do what needs to be done, Albert. That is what I’m here for.”
Albert lets out a breath, and Wade can tell that it will be one of his last. “Thank you. Thank you.”
He holds out the thumb drive with trembling fingers, and Wade takes it from him. It disappears into his lone, infinitely large pouch.
Albert regards him for a moment, even as the muscles around his heart start spasming. “You’re wrong, you know,” he says softly. “About the legends. You’re not what they say you are.”
Wade waits, silent, as Albert takes his last, pained breath and crumples to the ground.
“Annnd survey says? Bzzzzzzt, aww, wrong answer!”
He snorts and rolls out his shoulders, his neck cracking loudly in the relative quiet of the side street. He tolerates the whole gloomy, benevolent deity schtick because for self-important types like Albert he gets the job done, but he always feels so stiff afterward. Like he’s one step away from wearing a black robe and carrying a scythe, like a certain (bone dry, ha) colleague of his.
The reality is, legends are finicky things that tend to steer false as easily as they steer true. Scattered amongst the scribbled notes of the soon-to-be-dead, the legends about Wade started as snapshots of a moment in time. Those snapshots were piled together, and then the gaps were filled in with whatever made sense at the time, and boom. Legends, born. The snapshots were accurate. The story... less so.
Like, it's not Wade's fault that he came across as a psychopath for a while, there. He went through a phase where he wanted to see if being cheerful and optimistic with his assignments would make them less depressing all the time, that’s all. Unfortunately for him, that phase happened to last a few meager centuries, and those centuries happened to coincide with humanity starting to write shit down all the time. As he soon learned, being cheerful about death didn't make people happy, it made them terrified. So he stopped. Lesson learned. But the damage was done, and now he’s shackled with a reputation for cruelty and instability that no amount of penance can shake.
Whatever. He's leaning into it these days. Call him a nutjob. Call him demented. It doesn't matter. Nothing does.
He approaches Albert’s corpse and pats his head condescendingly. “Sorry, toots. I’m exactly what they say I am. But hey, thanks for the free dough!”
He doesn’t take the thumb drive to Oscorp. Not immediately, anyway.
Instead, he makes the long, slow trek across the city, past the good part of town, past the okay part, and straight into the shitty part. Here, people can’t so much as chat without some junkie or streetwalker interrupting them. He likes that. It’s a healthy reminder that humanity can make all the advancements it likes, but some things never change.
He waits outside the doorway to Sister Margaret’s School for Wayward Children and slips in behind someone when they enter. He could use the door if he wanted to, but it always spooks people when they can’t see the thing that opened it, even in a grimy dive like this.
Once inside, he ignores the loud revelry of the rabble rousers in the main room and makes for the back. He has something of a deal with the owner, a scrubbly, shockingly intelligent man named Weasel. Wade still isn’t sure how Weasel tracked him down—how anyone alive could track him down—but Weasel’s rambling monologue about electromagnetic signals and quantum physical disruptions didn’t help clarify much. Wade may have a literal eternity to learn everything there is to learn, but he doesn’t have enough time to understand whatever-the-fuck that shit is.
He stops in at Sister Margaret's around once a week to check in. Sometimes Weasel has jobs for him—sneaky things that require the assistance of someone who won't be noticed by guards or surveillance tech—and other times, like today, Wade drops by because an assignment's unfinished business involves something of interest. Discreet intel on Oscorp, the city's largest and most corrupt corporation, is definitely something Weasel will want to see.
Secure in the back room, Wade fishes an empty thumb drive out of the requisite drawer and uses Weasel's dusty, highly-modified computer to duplicate the content on Albert's drive. Demystifying the data is Weasel's job, all Wade does is run the program that copies everything. When the copy is complete, he leaves the new drive on the desk with a sticky note and sets out to Oscorp to deliver the original. He always completes his cosmic assignments. He just also happens to make pitstops on the way, sometimes. Nice, tidy, harmless.
If anyone were to ask why Wade carries out this side job, he'd shrug and reply, why not? It's not all that entertaining, but it staves off some of the boredom, and Wade will take what he can get. His work as a ferryman is thankless, a series of divine urges that lead him to his assignments, who rarely offer him anything but a headache in return. At least with Weasel, he gets some interactions with someone who isn’t dying out of the deal.
Assignments from on high aren’t crazy frequent, either. Most souls don’t have unfinished business, so the ferrymen on Earth don’t need to tangle with them. Instead, their souls go right on to the Aether, and Charon escorts them where they need to go. Wade and his brethren hang around for those occasions when a soul is reluctant to leave. Sticky souls are no bueno. He’s got a handful of assignments a day, on average, but that leaves him a lot of free time left over. He finally has something to do with some of it.
The money helps, too. Wade didn't expect to care about it, at first, because what would something like Wade need with currency? He was around when caveman traded handaxes for pelts. But, as he has since learned, money has its uses. He has an apartment now, leased under Weasel's name but reserved entirely for his own use. It’s a small oasis where he can touch what he pleases without scaring anyone. He can watch TV or open a window without people screaming about hauntings. It’s the little things, you know?
And he has things, now. Of his own.
So the money’s pretty cool, all things considered.
A week after he leaves that copy of the thumb drive, a PlayStation arrives at his door, per the sticky note’s instructions. He spends a full four days on his couch (that he owns) driving a silly, made up car around a silly, made up city.
He names his character Albert.
But, getting back to the theme, here, Wade is amused by his newfound work, but he isn’t satisfied with it. Nothing, not even fucking a silly, made up prostitute in a pixelated car, pulls Wade out of his perpetual state of boredom. His odd friendship with Weasel is novel, sure, but transient. Weasel’s got his own life to lead, and it’s not like they can really communicate properly. Wade has to use a computer or notepad to say anything. So if anything, that situation only serves to depress Wade more. His best friend in the world has no idea what he looks like, how he sounds, none of it. Wade is unfathomably, permanently alone.
That is, until he’s not.
A few weeks after he finishes the last GTA game, he’s out on the street, taking a midday stroll and wishing the sun would just implode and end the world, already, when a red blur zips past him. “Look out, dude!”
Wade stops dead.
Or, okay, not dead. Listen, he fucking stops, okay?
It’s not Spider-Man himself that gives Wade pause. He’s aware of Spider-Man. He’s seen the videos and heard the streetside gossip, or whatever. Some kid’s landed himself cool powers and runs around the city in spandex with them. Big whoop.
It’s that Spider-Man spoke to him.
No one else is around. There are people everywhere, of course—this is New York—but not precisely where he is. Not close enough that Spider-Man could have meant to talk to someone else.
Now, Wade isn’t always invisible, obviously. He appears for his assignments a few minutes before they’re supposed to die so he can do his thing. But Wade always knows about that shit in advance. It presents as something like a telltale tug in his belly, an urge to get up and go that comes with a cosmic dossier on the necessary details.
He didn’t know about Spidey in advance. There’s no urge here. No assignment.
“What the shit,” he breathes, floored. He’s too stunned to be bored. Something interesting happened.
He has to give chase.
By the time he catches up to Spider-Man, there’s a crowd gathering around what appears to be a fight. The lights of police cars flash off nearby buildings, and most everyone is rallied behind plastic barricades. Beyond the barricades, a massive, slimy creature waves its tentacles in the air and roars while Spider-Man starts doing his webby, twisty work.
And he… doesn’t die.
Part of Wade expected him to, regardless of the lack of urge. There might have been some unprecedented glitch in the system that assigned him to Wade for a split second, or something. Not that the Big Guy makes mistakes, but none of the answers seem any more possible. People don’t just talk to him, ever.
This is something new. Something he has never heard of or witnessed. Something extraordinary.
Wade is thrilled.
By the time his awe fades for long enough for him to get his bearings, Spider-Man is long gone and the crowd has all but dissipated. Wade can’t even find it in himself to be disappointed for missing his chance to chase Spidey down. Instead, he goes home and boots up his Weasel-purchased laptop for some research. He wants to know everything there is about his newfound marvel.
Unfortunately, there isn’t much to go on. Spider-Man’s identity is unknown, and no one seems to know what he is or how he can do what he does. The most he can find are conspiracy theories, rambling essays about chemicals in the water or secret underground labs funded by the government. Nothing substantive, nothing illuminating.
Wade has to get his answers the hard way. That’s alright by him. He’s got, oh, a few million years to spare.
But, after a few weeks of prowling the streets night after night, hoping for another glimpse of soaring red-and-blue, he starts to get antsy. The boredom is starting to filter in again, and he can’t just sink back into it. He can’t.
He goes to Sister Margaret’s. If Spider-Man is the result of some deeply buried secret, Weasel is the person who would probably know something about it. Hopefully.
It’s several hours from closing when he arrives, but he doesn’t mind the wait. He passes the time on Weasel’s computer, running random, repulsive Google searches to fuck with Wade’s ad results. When Weasel finally makes his exhausted way to the back, Wade opens a blank document and types out his question.
What do you know about Spider-Man?
Weasel doesn’t notice at first. Wade rolls his eyes and reaches over to the nearby windchimes Weasel set up for precisely this purpose. He rings them. Loudly.
“Fuck!” Weasel jumps and then sags once he realizes what’s happened. “Jesus, Wade, you could be a little less American Horror Story about that. Christ. Hold on, I’ll be right there.”
Wade watches as he grabs a beer—Miller Lite High Life, like always—from the fridge and collapses into a chair near the computer. He reads the screen and harrumphs.
“First of all, hi, asshole,” he says, pausing to take a long sip of his beer. “Wouldn’t kill you to show some manners.”
Wade sticks his tongue out at Weasel, not caring that he won’t see it. Nothing would kill me, dipshit. HI. Now tell me what you know about Spider-Man.
Weasel reads the new line of text and plops his chin tiredly onto his fist, shrugging. “What do you want to know? He’s a little shit. He’s rounded up half a dozen of my guys this year alone. And, from what I gather, he does it for fucking free. I’ve tried rooting out his employer for years now, and there’s nothing there.”
What is he?
“You fuckin’ tell me,” Weasel replies, swigging his beer and belching. “You’re the omnipotent being here.”
I’m not omnipotent and you know it.
“Yeah, yeah, potato, tomato, dude. Go cry about it in your astral diary.”
You found ME. You must know something.
Weasel snorts. “I guess I should be flattered that you think so much of me. Seriously, I don’t know. There’s nothing there. I’ve tried to figure him out to put an end to his epic cockblock action on my enterprise, and there’s nothing. No lab results on the dark web, no history of experiments on any of the big corporate servers, nothing.”
Wade hesitates over the keyboard for a second.
He saw me.
Weasel wrinkles his brow. “That happens sometimes, I thought. The legends, and all that.”
Yeah, when people die and are assigned to me.
“I take it this is something different?”
Ding ding ding, we have a winner. No death. No fun little deathside chats. Nada.
“Huh. No wonder you’re interested.” Weasel takes a drink, blinking rapidly as he thinks. “How is that even possible?”
No idea. That’s why I’m in this shithole pestering you. Duh.
“Fuck off, dickweed,” he grouches. He takes off his glasses and rubs at his eyes. “I’m coming off an eighteen hour day, here. Listen, I don’t know what to tell you. I’ve tried looking into it, and nothing.”
No name, no address, no intel? How is THAT even possible?
“Who fucking knows?” Weasel drains his last of his beer and rolls his eyes. “Look, if I hear anything, you’ll be the first to know. That’s the best I can do. Okay?”
Wade sighs, disappointed. Okay.
Back to haunting the streets, it is.
It takes another month for Wade to spot Spider-Man again. In that time, Wade has become something of a fanatic. He’s subscribed to all the big fan accounts, and he gets notifications whenever Spidey is sighted out and about; he even starts getting the Daily Bugle, trash that it is, just to read about the latest thing that proves that Spidey’s a menace.
Through it all, to his enormous pleasure, he’s realized that he isn’t just perplexed by Spider-Man, he admires him. Not many humans care as much as Spidey does, and those that do always care more about their agenda. Not Spidey, though. Spidey’s just that good of an egg.
So, really, it’s not Wade’s fault that when he finally sees a familiar red-and-blue blur zoom past him overhead, he loses all sense of dignity in his excitement.
“Spidey! Spidey!” he shouts, waving his arms around in the middle of the sidewalk he’s been strolling down. “Spidey, wait up!”
Wade races after him, hoping fervently that Spider-Man can hear him. There’s a high chance he can’t, and that their last encounter was a fluke or mistake. Wade’s come to terms with that—he’s painfully used to disappointment and loss, after all this time—but the thin thread of hope that persists is well worth it. Spidey probably won’t hear him, but he might, and that’s better than nothing.
For all his hope, though, Wade is still stunned when Spider-Man’s head spins in his direction. Wade can tell that it’s him that Spidey notices from the slight tilt of his head; he’s seeing something unfamiliar, something unusual. Wade is, if nothing else, both of those things.
Spider-Man changes course, doubling back to Wade, and that’s all the warning Wade gets before he’s swept up with an arm like a steel band wrapped around his middle. He barely has time to squawk in surprise before he’s set on a rooftop.
“Who are you?” Spider-Man asks, crossing his arms. “What do you want?”
Wade is, for the first time in—wow, maybe ever—speechless. Spidey can touch him, too.
As the silence grows, Spider-Man’s posture becomes tense. “Seriously. You wanted my attention, you’ve got it. Answer my question. Who are you?”
Right. That’s the thing about being observable, Wade’s actually gotta do something when prompted. Patrick Swayze impressions won’t get him anywhere. He forces himself to get on track.
There are several ways he could respond. His real name is a non-starter. Mortals can’t survive hearing Aetherian, and even though Spider-Man is obviously no common mortal, Wade ain’t risking it. Of the remaining options, he could give his legendary name, Deadpool, or his current human name, Wade. Usually, Wade gives assignments the legendary name first, so they recognize him, and then he follows up with the human name to make himself more approachable. That’s why ferrymen keep human names, after all.
He doesn’t want to treat Spidey like an assignment, though. That’s not what this is. This is the opportunity to break the mold and try something new. This is a real, normal, human reaction. It deserves his human name.
The answer comes out breathless and excited. “I’m Wade.”
“Wade,” Spider-Man repeats suspiciously. “So, what? You’re a superfan? A copycat? You’ve been walking around in this get-up for weeks, now. Why?”
Wade double-takes. For all he’s stared at Spider-Man’s form since their first brush in, he’s never realized how similar their outfits are. They both wear skin-tight costumes in primarily red, with black and white eyes and dark paneling. Where Spidey’s paneling is blue, though, Wade’s is just more black.
“Oh,” he says intelligently, not sure how to respond. You’ve been walking around in this get-up for weeks. “You remember me? From that time with the… the slimy thing?”
Spider-Man clears his throat and crosses his arm, looking out to the horizon. “Yep.”
He’s hiding something. Wade doesn’t get to participate in many conversations, but he gets to eavesdrop on tons of them. He knows a tell when he sees one.
It’s obvious Spidey does remember him from the time with the slimy thing, so there’s something else going on. Something related to his suit, since that’s the first thing Spidey’s asking about. Something he’s being insistent about, like he’s frustrated. Like he’s been trying to figure it out, and he hasn’t, yet.
Oh, no fucking way.
No wonder Wade’s been searching the city for weeks with no results. All this time he’s been searching for a glimpse of Spidey, Spidey’s been glimpsing him. Sneaky little wall-climber.
“I see,” Wade says, grinning under his mask. Spidey’s noticed him before! Him! Oh em gee! “Well, to answer your question, no, I didn’t copy you. If anything, you copied me.”
As soon as the words are out, he regrets them. Antagonizing Spidey is the last thing he wants to do. He has so many questions he should be asking, so many curiosities to sate. It’s just that now that he has Spidey around, finally, all he can do is revel in how those large, white eyeplates are directed at him. Not at something behind him, or near him, but him. And Spidey’s still not dying.
“False,” Spider-Man retorts promptly. “I came up with this costume on my own. I pulled ideas from old myths, not from randos on my turf. I’ll ask you again, what do you want?”
Old myths, huh? Wade grins under his mask. He fucking knew it.
It isn’t just that he’s a fan of Spider-Man. Spider-Man’s a fan of him.
He’s had fans before. Weirdly, he’s the most popular of the ferrymen, even though Grimmy’s the most well-known. The psychopath-phase nonsense makes him controversial. Humans love controversy. Wherever there’s culture, there’s counterculture right alongside it. And what’s more countercultural than a shifty little spider that climbs around on walls and acts as a vigilante?
He so bets Spider-Man was one of those edgy little emo types as a kid.
“I understand the confusion,” Wade offers, nodding. “I mean, this particular version of the suit is from… the eighties, maybe? I try to change it up every so often, keep things fresh. People tend to get weirded out if you look too out-of-date, and not all of us rock a shroud.”
He’s intentionally not saying his legendary name. If he’s right, he doesn’t need to.
“Nice try,” Spider-Man scoffs, turning half away from him. “Now, for the last time, what do you want? Why follow me around? Why shout me down?”
“You can see me,” Wade explains, taking a step forward and only dimming a little when Spidey takes a responding step back. “You did weeks ago, too. You saw me then, and you’re seeing me now. How?”
“Of course, I can see you,” Spider-Man snaps impatiently. “What, do people normally not?”
Wade shrugs. “Not unless they’re about to die.”
“Oh my god, stop it, already.” Spider-Man strides away several steps. “You’re not Deadpool. You’re just—you know what, this is a waste of my time. Just, look, do me a favor: Don’t do anything stupid. Cool? Cool.”
And then, before Wade can so much as open his mouth to reply, Spidey is leaping off the rooftop and swinging away.
Wade can’t stop grinning. He should be disappointed, he supposes, that his month of waiting led to such an unfriendly encounter, but he can’t be. He spoke to someone. He had a real, direct conversation with someone, and judging from the movements of the red speck in the distance, Spidey is still very much alive to tell the tale.
It wasn’t a fluke. It wasn’t a mistake. Spider-Man can see him. And he knows who Wade is. He doesn’t believe Wade about who he is, but Wade couldn’t care less about that. If interaction happened twice, it could happen a third time. A fourth. A tenth.
He isn’t alone.