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A drafty window. A small opening for flies. One bright light shining in the corner.
A good lure. A good snare.
Weaving. Weaving in the shadows slanting through the light. Weaving long into the night.
Then patience. Crouching, immobile. Waiting for the wet, delicious struggle.
A thrashing, a buzzing, then-
-a strike! Fangs sinking in, venom rushing deep. Winding and winding in an endless circle until- yes! Stillness.
Then only wet slurping, so good, so perfect.
This is a good place. A good lure. An excellent web.
Peter was aware that Wade had been following him all evening. He wasn’t sure if Deadpool knew that he could sense him, could smell him, anytime he was nearby and the wind was blowing in the right direction. He somehow always neglected to let the mercenary know. Maybe something deep inside him worried that Wade would stop if he told him.
Peter had found a good spot on their regular roof. The city stretched out unimpeded below his dangling feet as he waited for Deadpool to make up his mind and approach. He shifted the warm bag in his lap and tilted his head, scenting the air unseen beneath the mask, the world a little muted under the fabric. Wade had been hiding behind the door to the stairs, watching Peter and mumbling to himself, for the last five minutes.
He heard a long sigh and something that sounded like, Go get ‘em tiger, I believe in you! and then Wade was striding towards him, acting surprised to see him sitting there.
“Hey itsy bitsy! Whatcha got there? Tacos?”
“Hi Wade. Help yourself.” Peter didn’t mention that he knew Wade had tailed him to the Mexican food truck and had actually heard him gasp in happiness from behind a tree when he’d ordered his favorite. Or that Peter had sensed his eyes on him, clocking every move, shadowing his every step, for weeks now.
“And whom are we ensnaring with our eight legs today?” Wade asked, flexing his fingers like a spider grabbing a bug.
Peter shot him a look and then crunched hungrily into the hard taco shell, the beef juice gushing into his mouth and nearly making him moan as his teeth dug deep. He licked the grease off his lips and went back in for another ripping bite.
He was so hungry. The scent that hung in the air. It made him ravenous.
“You know, eight legs?” Deadpool said, nudging him with an elbow to the ribs and happily talking through his mouthful of food. “Because together we got eight limbs. Or wait, actually,” Wade’s whole head followed his gaze to Peter’s crotch.
“Don’t-”
“We’re a ten-legged spider if you count-”
“Don’t you dare say it-”
“-our dicks!”
“Why are you like this?” Peter groaned, hiding his fond smile behind another ravenous bite.
“I’d like to think it’s because I’m perpetually horny and you’re hot, but I actually believe it’s mostly due to the combined psychological and physical trauma. And there may be a few underlying personality factors. Plus I literally hear voices and-”
“Okay, okay! It was rhetorical.”
“Oh, alright then.”
Wade continued munching away at his half of the tacos, his mask pulled up just enough to eat. Peter had his own mask hiked up a little farther, allowing him to breathe freely through his nose, to take in the surrounding smells much more clearly, just like he always did when they had these “accidental” run-ins on a rooftop. His excuse to himself was that it was safer for both of them if he could smell their surroundings. He might notice something important. Smoke, maybe. Gunpowder. He inhaled through his nose slowly, saliva flooding his mouth. He bit savagely into the last taco, mourning that it was growing cold, losing its warmth to the night air.
Wade tugged down his mask as soon as he was done eating, just like he always did, and Peter reluctantly did the same after one last deep breath of scent, pretending not to sense Deadpool side-eying him under the cover of his mask.
A current moves. Unnatural in the stillness.
A presence. Not a buzzing or a soft flapping, but large.
Quick! Hide!
Couching in the corner, out of the light. Wait for the thing to pass by. Stay hidden. Stay safe.
A strike! A hollow fang pulling. Legs scrambling to stay in the good place. But the hollow fang is too strong. It does not bite. It pulls.
Slipping, tumbling into a clear void. A transparent prison. Others are here: brothers and sisters. They move in the clear trap, their voices nervous, worried. They have also lost their good web places. They are worried about being separated from the dark, the fluttering, the wet bite and pull of life-giving sweetness.
Their voices and legs murmur like a tide.
Peter sat on the rooftop and fiddled with the web shooter on his left wrist.
He scented the air again, but nothing had changed. Garbage and car fumes and urine. Perfume and baking bread and sex. Small dead things. Even more small alive things. The food in the paper sack next to him. His web fluid. Himself.
He shifted the bag of tacos on the roof ledge. They had gone cold. Just like last night. And the night before.
Peter unwrapped one and tugged the mask up to eat, dodging the innards that fell towards his suit, watching as bits spun over the edge to rain congealed cheese on the alley below.
His spidey sense blipped minutely right before his phone rang, giving him a jolt and causing him to nearly knock the rest of the tacos over the ledge.
“‘Ello?” He stuck the phone to the side of his face and continued eating.
“Peter?” The man’s voice was cheerful. Peter finished his last bite and straightened up, suddenly on edge.
“Yes…” he answered on a long breath. “And this is…?”
“Michael. Michael Morbius. From Horizon Labs.”
“Oh, yeah. I’ve read about you.” What was it? Bioengineering? Something high profile.
“Max Modell gave me your number. I hope you don’t mind.”
“No, not at all! Anything for Max. He’s basically one of my heroes, after all. His work on-”
“Yes, yes, the man is a genius,” Morbius cut in. There was a deep intake of breath followed by a slight pause, before he continued in a more pleasant voice, “He’s helped me in developing my latest project, and he thought you would be interested in seeing the results.”
“Me?” He placed a hand on his chest as if the man on the phone could see him.
“Yes. ‘Call Peter,’ he said.”
“Really?”
“No.” Morbius chuckled, a humorless little sound. “I actually lifted your number from his phone. It’s surprisingly difficult to get the one for the burner you carry with you. Seems Max rates high. Along with your aunt and… who else? Tony Stark? Steve Rogers?”
Peter’s blood ran cold. “Why would I know them?” he asked, voice flat.
“Don’t you even want to know what my little project is about, Peter?”
“Not so sure now, the magic has sorta gone out of the conversation.”
“Spiders, Peter. My research is about spiders. I’m interested in human DNA merging with other species. Mainly spiders and well, bats, for personal reasons, you understand. I’ve gotten a lot farther with my little spider experimentation, alas for me, but a boon for you. Peter, tell me. Do you ever wish you were normal?”
“What do you want from me,” Peter whispered.
“Just a little blood, Peter. That’s all. Just a little blood.”
The crystal cavern is full of brothers and sisters, all murmuring. Legs touch, taste, scent, delicately feel out the slick walls for a crack, a flaw, finding none.
There are no delicious flutterings, no juicy feasting. The brothers and sisters here are all of a similar size. Battles for dominance would be tiresome.
There is longing for the good webs, the good waiting places.
The light comes again, warm and humming. Hairs prickle and vibrate. Eyes, thousands of eyes, glint in the flashing light.
Then there is a… a sound… but not felt in feet or body. Felt somewhere deep, back behind the multitudes of eyes. First it sounds like the hush of many brothers and sisters only smaller, sharper. It is inside, little pricks of other voices, falling like rain, deep inside, growing louder.
Then another inside sound, close and strange and so loud.
“It’s working, isn’t it? It’s actually working…”
Words? What are these strange thoughts, shaped so prickly, so loud and close and inside.
“I’m going to succeed this time.”
Hope. Wonder. New, strange feelings. Things larger than the wet gulping of sweet fluttering morsels. Complex and unnerving and-
“I will be human once again.”
Human. Human? Is that what is thinking the large, strange thoughts? Human. Human.
“I will succeed.”
We will succeed.
“I will be human once again.”
We will be human. Human. We will be human.
The light comes again, reflecting off the bright new thoughts like thousands of tiny diamonds.
Peter knew it was a trap, but he went anyway.
Sneaking in was easy. He crawled across the high ceiling of Horizon Labs in absolute silence, sticking to the shadows of exposed ductwork. Finding Morbius was also easy. Too easy. But the man hadn’t seen him yet, and Peter planned to have him caught in a straitjacket of webbing before he could so much as turn around from the station where he was working. Then they’d have a civilized conversation and Peter could determine what the scientist really wanted with his blood.
His spidey sense barely flickered before he felt a sharp sting at his neck. He groaned out loud in annoyance before plummeting two stories to the lab floor below.
Whatever the formula was, the drug seemed tailor-made for his unique biology, rendering him impossibly weak. He wasn’t completely paralyzed, but when he raised his arm to shoot a web and try to swing to safety, it felt like he was moving through hardening concrete. It was no problem whatsoever for a smiling Michael Morbius to stride over and pluck his web shooters off his wrists.
“Hello Peter,” he said, voice soft as he casually tucked the shooters into his lab coat pocket. “I’ll just hold onto these until after our meeting. And let me get that dart out of your neck for you.”
He reached forward and plucked the offending needle out of Peter’s flesh, making a sympathetic face at Peter’s wince.
“I’m actually quite pleased that this little cocktail worked on you. Let me help you get more comfortable.” To his horror, Morbius started undressing him, moving him around like an action figure and stripping off the suit. Peter tried to knock the intrusive hands away but he was helpless as a kitten. “There,” Morbius said cheerfully, yanking off the mask and setting it with the rest of the suit on a lab chair, ignoring Peter’s indignant squawk of protest. “Much more comfy without all that high tech escape gear weighing you down, I’m sure.”
“How considerate,” Peter croaked. He glanced around the lab looking for anything he could use as a weapon. Lab table. Computers. Beakers. Though without being able to web anything with his jelly arms and lack of shooters, there wasn’t a whole lot he could do at the moment.
He noticed a slight movement behind Morbius, the wall along that side of the lab made of thick glass that looked like it had been splatter-painted with black from the other side, uneven patches of darkness covering the surface. Peter squinted as something behind the glass seemed to flicker.
The wall shifted. The whole wall undulated and shivered and with horror Peter realized what he was looking at. It was a tank of spiders. Thousands of spiders. Crawling over one another as they moved slowly through their enclosure.
“Oh god,” Peter whispered.
“Yes, they’re the main reason I wanted to see you, actually, and why I have such good news.” Morbius beamed, and Peter began to wonder just how unbalanced the scientist was. He had been assuming ‘megalomaniac hellbent on ruling the city and/or intent on making a few million dollars to furnish their evil lair.’ But now he was seriously concerned that Morbius actually thought he was about to help him. And that was somehow way worse.
“Good news, huh?” Peter forced a smile. “Well, I could really use some right now, seeing as I’m drugged, naked, and trapped in a lab belonging to a mentor of mine. Again. This really happens at an alarming frequency, you know?”
Morbius chuckled and shook his head gently, as if humoring a child, watching good-naturedly as Peter slowly got himself into more of a sitting position and less of a sprawl. He painstakingly pulled his legs under him in a messy crouch, ready to spring the moment his strength came back. If it came back.
“We have a lot more in common than you know, Peter.”
Peter grimaced. Not the most promising opening line for a villain monologue. “Please tell me it’s not our sense of style, because while I’m loving the whole mad scientist vibe, I could never keep a white coat clean in my line of work.”
Morbius huffed a short laugh, shaking his head. “Our unnatural genetics, Peter. You were gifted,” he spat the word out as if it were vile, “with spider DNA, while I, on the other hand, share genetic material with bats.”
“Oh, so if I’m Spider-Man, does that make you Batma-”
“So as you can see, we have a common interest.”
“Flies?”
“Of becoming fully human once more,” Mobius concluded, looking slightly pained. “I have experimented as far as I can at the moment on my own DNA, but my tests with spiders have been much more promising. I will cure you first, and then I will cure myself.” He beamed at Peter, his face almost pleasant.
“And if I don’t want to be cured?”
“You do.”
“But-”
“You’re an outcast.” Peter glared at Morbius. That hit a little too close to home. “Like me,” Morbius continued, his eyes sad and serious. “You must sometimes crave a normal life. A family. Friends you aren’t constantly putting in danger just by existing. You can be completely human again, Peter.”
Peter swallowed. Okay, well. He hadn’t expected this to turn emotional.
“All I need is a sample of your blood.”
Morbius approached him slowly with a syringe.
“What if it doesn’t work?”
“It will.”
“But what if it doesn’t?”
Morbius looked deeply into Peter’s eyes. He gave him a small, sad smile.
“Then I’ll make sure it doesn’t hurt when I end your suffering.”
Peter was able to move just fast enough to roll out of Morbius’ reach across the lab floor. Looking around frantically as Morbius pulled a dart gun out of his lab coat pocket, Peter’s gaze landed on the only door within drunken-sprinting distance, and booked it. Or, well, more like stumble-skip-weaved his way much too slowly towards it. But he made it before Morbius and got his bare butt through the door and was able to turn the lock behind him. But not before he got hit with two more darts.
He pulled them out - one from his thigh and one from his shoulder - and took a moment to breathe and look around at the room he now found himself in, his head beginning to swim dangerously. It was the spider tank control room. Because of course it was. Thousands of eye-clusters stared back at him through the glass, looking at him as if… as if they noticed him. Really noticed him, and not in just an instinctive, animal way, but as if they saw him and recognized him. He shivered and looked for another door.
There wasn’t one. Because of course there wasn’t. Well, there was. But it was the door to the tank.
“Peter,” Morbius called through the glass window in the door. “Humanity is a gift, Peter. Look at them.” His eyes flicked to the spider tank over Peter’s shoulder. “Even though the rays made them half-sentient and slightly telepathic, they are still so completely other. Only you and I can truly understand what it’s like to lose our humanity the way we have. This is our chance to be pure. Don’t you want that, Peter? We should be working together-”
“Pardon, did you say telepathic?” His eyes flicked over to the completely still arachnids who were gazing back at him.
“Don’t make me come in after you,” Morbius said, his tone not as compassionate as it had been just a moment before. Peter’s spidey sense began to sound a red alert, just in time for Peter to see Morbius lift a wicked-looking, super-soldier-strength taser in one hand and a bunch of keys in the other.
Shit.
The spiders were waving their legs at him. In unison. All several thousand of the little guys signaling to him at once.
Peter took a deep breath, and with the last of his strength, opened the door to the tank.
This is not a fluttery morsel, nor is it a brother or a sister. But there is something familiar. It is kin.
It is large and warm and scared. Clumsy. It is going to hurt itself, flailing around, falling down.
Best to wrap it up safe. Not for the bite and the slurping - hungry! how much we do miss the delicious wet juices! - but to keep it from harm, this strange ungainly kin.
All the brothers and sisters working together to gently swaddle it in silk, to tenderly affix it to the corner walls, safe and sound and secure, like a giant egg sac. Precious. Yes, precious.
The thoughts of this large kin are different from the other large creature (Human? Human. Yes, it called itself human), the one that is full of plans and sharp visions. The one that the brothers and sisters hiss at and scare away back into the brightness outside.
This clumsy sleepy one is easy to understand.
Strength. Stealth. These things the brothers and sisters know. A safe den where no one looks. A good web place. Safety to eat the warm delicious things clutched in legs- no, fingers.
Waiting. Waiting for the good thing to arrive, to flutter in amidst the overwhelming smells and vibrations. Waiting for the sound that means the good thing is there. Talking.
The good thing is red. Large and red and loud and smells so delicious.
The brothers and sisters shift as the kin struggles weakly. It is distressed. It can hear tiny thoughts and impulses in its head… in his head. The kin can understand the brothers and sisters… us. He can hear us. We can hear him.
Greetings.
“Who are you?”
We are your… kin? We are… you? Your thoughts are strong. They are new and strong and fill our heads full of thoughts.
“I need to get out of here.”
No, you are injured. You must stay safe.
“I have to get help.”
We will get you help. We are you. You are struggling. We will bite you and share our calming venom.
He tastes familiar. Not bad. But not like the wet delicious flutterings. It is a little disappointing. But not terrible. And now… now the memories are clearer. His name. Peter. And another name… the good red thing. Wade.
Wade. We will get Wade.
Wade was having a damn good dream. A dream about Spider-Man. And okay, so he wasn’t actually asleep and it was maybe more of a fantasy than a proper dream and his hands were south of the border, but, dammit, let him have this!
His baby boy had been so brave and sassy last time they had patrolled together. He was a charmer. How was he still single? Was he still single?
Wade might cry a little if Spidey was with someone. Not that he was ever going to come up with enough courage to actually make a real move on the wall crawler, but his heart couldn’t take it if he had absolutely no chance. Okay, well he still had zero chance, but still.
He groaned an unsexy groan and tried to concentrate on what he was doing. He pushed away all the messy feelings that spilled up his throat and choked him when he thought about Spider-Man out there, poor as hell but still buying Wade dinner, even when he didn’t have the decency to show up and only creeped on him from a distance.
Better to think about his body. His strength. The way he could so easily pin Wade’s larger bulk down with his whipcord arms. The way he would lift his head slightly and scent the air, like he did while they ate together on the roof. Like he was hunting.
And the way he ate. Ripping in and biting down. Shit. That was so hot. He could really take a person apart with that mouth. Could hold a body down and bite and, fuck!
He pictured it. Spidey hunting him down, holding him down and taking, taking. Yeah, oh yeah. That was hot, that was-
Spider-man was in his bedroom.
And no, he wasn’t hallucinating this time. He’s pretty sure.
“This is exactly what it looks like!” Wade hollered, grabbing a sheet of questionable cleanliness and swaddling it around his hips. “Though if I’d known we were on house call terms, I swear I would have been more discrete. Mostly. Somewhat. Uh, yeah, hey baby boy! What’s up? Besides me? Still. Because I have no shame, er, well, I do but it’s apparently a kink when it comes to you and… Are you alright, Spidey?”
Something seemed off about his sweet-as-pie baby boy. He was sitting in the corner of the ceiling. Or well, sprawled upside down, one leg stretched along the ceiling, one arm stretched down the wall, his back arched unnaturally. Somehow he looked more like a spider than ever, despite the fact he only had four limbs. (Five, five limbs, his brain added helpfully, making him snicker).
Spidey cocked his head, his neck twisting almost all the way around. Wade screamed a little.
“Okay, uh, not so sure if that is more ‘squee, how sexy’ or ‘eek, how scary’ itty-bit,” Wade tittered nervously. “Why don’t you come on down here and take a load off. In my bed.” He patted the rumpled sheets invitingly.
Wade. It was Spidey’s voice, but it didn’t sound quite right. The word echoed strangely in his head and for a moment he was overcome with vertigo. We found you! Spider-Man said in apparent delight.
Deadpool’s heart was confused, torn between bubbling up in delight or going cold with dread. He didn’t have any spidey sense, but what was left of his self-preservation was prickling like crazy as Spider-Man crawled down his wall and across the floor to the bed.
Spider-Man paused right in front of where Wade was sitting, raising both arms and waving them at him, like a real spider scenting the air.
“Uh, you okay there?”
Oh yes, sorry, Spider-Man replied, his voice rippling out and crossing back over itself in Wade’s mind, like agitated water in a pool. We are still learning. He rose slowly to his feet in a wave, seeming to levitate his torso upwards with no regard for muscle and bone. Then he was sitting in Wade’s lap, weighing next to nothing.
Wade’s skin was absolutely crawling, though he hesitated to push Spider-Man off. It was like his wildest dreams were becoming reality, but had somehow picked up his nightmares along the way. He shivered and then froze when it dawned on him that his skin was literally crawling with spiders, their tiny touches feather-light as they tip-toed their way up his arms and chest.
He held his breath and squeezed his eyes shut, trying not to let out the embarrassing scream he had pinging off the insides of his skull at full volume.
We are so happy we found you, Wade, Spider-Man said, his voice mixing in with the terrified screeching in his head.
The spiders swarmed him and Spider-Man seemed to deflate where he sat on his lap, his head slowly caving in and his whole body shrinking down until only the red suit remained crumpled in Deadpool’s lap. Wade’s body disappeared under a swarming mass of arachnids.
“S-spidey?”
Yes, Wade? came the voice in his head. Hundreds of legs were gently exploring his face, the tiny feet hooking into the crevices of his scars, examining him. Caressing him. He heard a murmur in his mind that sounded an awful lot like cooing.
“I don’t mean to get too personal here buddy, but have you always been about three thousand spiders in a suit?” Wade cleared his throat. “Not that I’m judging or anything, but um, I may have to adjust some personal expectations here and- ah! Are you biting me?”
Spider-Man's voice chuckled in Wade’s head. You taste good, Wade, as good as Peter thought you would.
“P-peter?”
Yes! Our kin, our almost-human kin. We are him now. His thoughts are ours. We are Spider-Man and we have come to find you like he wanted.
“Spider-Man’s name is Peter?”
Yes. That’s the word in his mind meaning himself, meaning us. We are also Peter. We have found you, Wade! Peter is happy. And you taste so good.
Dozens of tiny pin pricks littered his throat, the little shots of venom making him go pleasantly floaty for a moment, before his healing factor kicked in and his brain came back online. He shivered and a multitude of legs shifted their grip on him.
“Where is Peter? The human Peter?”
He is not completely human, he is kin.
“He’s alive?”
Oh yes. We protected him. He is in a good web. Wrapped up and safe like a clutch of young.
“Can you bring me to him?” Wade shifted, careful not to accidentally squish any tiny Peters. He’d have a mental breakdown about all this later, if it turned out he was even awake.
Of course! That’s why we are here. You are just very distracting. It sounded as if the voice in his head suddenly splintered into a tiny multitude of agreeing voices.
Wet and warm.
Salty.
Tangy.
Rumbly and sweet.
Better than the soft flutterings.
Yes!
Yes!
Agreed.
Reluctantly it seemed, the spiders began swarming back into the suit, taking form and filling it out into Spider-Man’s familiar shape.
Follow us, Good Thing.
Wade followed.
The taste is…?
What would Peter-kin call it? Divine?
Divine.
Divine.
Really fucking good.
Yes. Really fucking good.
Better than the soft flutterings.
Much better.
Will Peter-kin share him with us?
Yes.
Maybe?
We will keep them both in the good web place. They will stay because it is so nice.
We can bring them food.
Yes.
Wade will be our food.
Yes!
Agreed.
Spider-Man - Peter - was indeed wrapped up like an egg sac when they reached Horizon Labs.
Wade carefully cut through the fibers with Bea, going as slow as possible and listening to the suit full of spiders use Peter’s voice to instruct him.
A little deeper.
Oh! Pull back! That’s where his head is.
Just pry it open now.
Wade parted the slightly sticky threads and extracted Peter’s body with the utmost care. He was naked and there were healing puncture marks on his creamy skin.
Was this really Spider-Man? His Spider-Man? Hanging limp in Wade’s arms, he seemed much too fragile, much too delicate, to be his mouthy, sturdy, invincible baby boy.
And his face. Peter, Paul and Mary, but he was a doll. An exquisite doll. Wade felt instantly dirty for looking at his pretty little mouth. He swallowed down a rush of longing and shifted him carefully into a protected bridal carry, with Peter’s head resting against his chest, the leather of the Deadpool suit dulling the warmth of the contact.
“If y’all are teasing me about this being Spider-Man, I will literally die. Several times in a row.”
There was a chittering noise, a bit like the hush that falls over an audience just before the orchestra strikes its opening note. The spiders were laughing at him.
The sound cut off abruptly as a wild-eyed man burst into the tank control room and stood panting, holding some sort of raygun, his rumpled frame blocking the exit. The guy looked back and forth between Peter’s slumped form and the Spider-Man suit full of actual spiders, his mouth hanging open.
“No,” he said, “It can’t be…” A smile slowly spread across his face. “They are that in tune with his mind?” He laughed, high-pitched and off-balance. “This was the opposite of what I was trying to achieve. Yet… there is potential.” His eyes flicked back to Deadpool. “I need his blood,” he said, his face transforming into a scowl that looked significantly less human than it had a moment before.
“Look, Vladimir, as much as I can sympathize with wanting a piece of baby boy here, you’re going to be taking a permanent nap in your coffin if you so much as look at him again, ‘kay?”
No killing, Wade, the spiders scolded.
“Not you too, legs,” Wade pouted. “He doesn’t have to know,” he reasoned, indicating the sleeping embodiment of perfection in his arms. “I’ll say the bad man fell down. All on his own. And mysteriously fell apart into two separate pieces. You guys have my back, right?”
We are Peter. No killing. We will all be mad at you. That one is like us, but not like us. He is in pain.
“I’m about to make it a lot worse if he keeps aiming that toy pistol at the light of my life.”
No killing!
“Fine.” Wade pulled a tragic face at them. “Then what do you suggest-”
This!
The suit leapt at the guy in the lab coat, the blast from the gun missing them by a fraction as the spiders dodged bonelessly, morphing fluidly out of the way. They landed on the bat-faced guy with barely a sound, the Spider-Man suit erupting and crumpling to the floor as the spiders poured out, engulfing the screaming man in a living net.
The voices all separated for a moment in their excitement, echoing in Wade’s skull.
Bite him!
Sedate him!
He doesn’t taste as good as Wade.
Not nearly as good.
Wade is much better.
Wade is the best.
The best Good Thing.
Yes.
Yes!
Okay, this one is asleep.
Morbius?
Yes, Peter-kin thinks Morbius.
I don’t want to taste him anymore.
Stop biting. Let’s put him in the cocoon for Max.
Max can help him!
Good ol’ Max!
Do you think Max tastes good?
Not as good as Wade.
Nothing tastes as good as Wade.
Agreed.
Agreed!
Wade watched in fascination as the spiders regrouped into the Spider-Man suit and then lifted the sleeping man more gently than he deserved. But then, what Wade felt the guy deserved was a slow, unpleasant death. So.
Deadpool held Peter closer and snuffled his hair through the mask as the spiders carried Edward Sullen over to the broken web sac. Several hundred spiders emerged from the Spider-Man suit and worked quickly to weave the cocoon closed, a happy murmur tickling at Wade’s mind as they worked.
Okay, all set, they announced, walking back up to Wade and dusting the suit’s hands off in an unsettlingly human-like gesture.
Wade found a discarded lab coat over the back of a chair, gently tucking Peter’s naked body into the garment. He tried his best not to be perverted about it. It was hard. In more ways than one. The kid had miles of soft skin- nope! Behaving! Once his baby boy was bundled up and nestled against Wade’s chest, all three of them (three thousand and three of them?) made their way outside.
They walked side by side, taking the back route to Wade’s closest safehouse. The spiders were happily humming something out of tune and kicking an empty microwavable mac-n-cheese container down the street. It was quiet and companionable until they entered the alley outside of Wade’s place.
We’re waking up.
“Pardon?”
Peter-kin. The suit’s hand motioned to the warm weight in Wade’s arms just as Peter shifted and sighed in his sleep. We’re waking up, they repeated, the voice in his head gone soft and sad.
They were walking slower and slower, the suit next to him no longer perfectly resembling a human body under the spandex. There were divots where there shouldn’t be, the fabric beginning to sag.
A little pin prick at his ankle. Another on his calf. The spider’s small feet were delicate as they clung under his suit, crawling in through the smallest gap of fabric near his boot tops. They nestled into his scars for a moment, like a hug, each biting once before crawling out from under the leather and scurrying quickly into crevices at either side of the alley, vanishing into the walls.
Tastes so good.
The best.
We will miss this.
Yes.
Do we have to wake up?
It’s already happening.
Their bites made Wade woozy, his healing factor kicking in before he could completely succumb to their venom and drop Peter, who was softly moaning in his sleep and clinging tighter to Wade every moment.
Some of the spiders made it as far up as his neck, biting him tenderly and then crawling out through the seam at his throat. He even felt little bites on his ass cheeks and the small of his back, his inner thighs.
The best Good Thing.
The best.
The voice was growing fainter and fainter as more spiders disappeared into the cracks between the crumbling bricks. Peter sighed and his eyes began to flutter.
Thank you.
We will miss you, Wade.
Thank you.
We love you.
We love you Wade.
We… I… I love you Wade.
The suit lay motionless on the ground. The last black shape disappeared from view as Peter fully opened his eyes.
“I had a really weird dream,” Peter told him seriously, his fingers, seeking out the seam at Wade’s throat, his fingertips resting delicately against Wade’s gnarled skin. “Am I awake?”
“Yeah, baby boy.” Wade cleared his throat. “You’re awake.”
The good web places are rebuilt. They are even better than before. Before the… the dream.
But the soft flutterings… the wet gulping… it is no longer everything. Not as real or as good as the dream.
Weaving. Weaving in the dark.
The brothers and sisters murmur of the dream. They all remember. They all… they all long.
Desire. It is so new. So disruptive.
Flutter and snatch. Feast.
It is no longer enough.
The good web places feel empty.
What is this new awareness? It is unsettling.
Keep weaving, weaving in the dark. We must forget. We must all forget. We must all wake up from the dream.
“So, you were connected to them?” Deadpool perched cautiously on the edge of the couch. It had been there when he moved in and was one of the nicer pieces of furniture he owned. Peter was swallowed up by the fluffy cushions, wearing Wade’s XXXL hoodie and sipping a coffee shop tea that Wade had run out to grab him.
“Yeah? But it was sorta dreamy. Like, they were viewing my memories and were sorta, um, running a Peter program? But I wasn’t controlling anything, I don’t think. I was basically asleep.”
“So you don’t think I’m delicious?” Wade was beginning to regret the decision to change into sweats and leave the mask off. That may have been an act of hopeful hubris on his part.
Peter appeared to be hiding behind his huge paper cup of earl grey. “I um…” He broke into a peal of laughter, only for it to cut off awkwardly. “I mean, I haven’t personally tasted you.”
Large bambi eyes flashed up at him, a little less innocent than he’d been expecting. A little more… hungry.
Wade forgot how to swallow. “Um.”
“But you smell real good.” Peter slowly set the cup down on the coffee table and moved forward until he was leaning on his hands, his fingers sinking into the couch cushion between them. He looked cute. Adorable. Angelic-
Peter tipped his head to the side and inhaled, his eyes falling into half-slits and the tips of his teeth peeking out between his soft lips.
“Oh shit,” Wade whispered. Peter was terrifying.
One of his slim arms darted out and snared Deadpool behind the knee. The next thing he knew, he was flat on his back on the sofa and Spider-Man was between his legs, hunched over Wade’s larger body, motionless, hovering over him with his mouth half open.
Everything in Wade that was left over from an ancient and inborn prey instinct went stock-still and round-eyed. There was no doubt about it. He was being hunted.
“Petey?”
Spider-Man’s eyes darted up from where they had been gazing at Wade’s exposed belly and met his eyes. It made Wade think of all those times he’d stared at Spider-Man while he waited on rooftops. A serene, impossible stillness. Not entirely human. Something immense. Something other.
“Wade.” It was a soft breath. There was nothing in Peter’s voice to warn him. Between one exhale and the next, teeth were at Wade’s throat, were breaking skin. Wade could feel it tearing. He went tense with pain. Grew hard on it. Gasped and squirmed as Peter licked the wounds. “Mmm,” Peter hummed desperately against his skin. “You taste so good.”
“Oh god, oh god,” Wade chanted as he healed, only to have Peter bite down on his shoulder, ripping his sweatshirt apart with quick clever fingers. Peter flung the scraps away, intent on Wade’s exposed chest and abdomen, eyes black and ravenous.
His hands caressed up Wade’s sides as he bit down on one pectoral, just to the side of his scared nipple, licking and kissing the blood away. Deadpool cupped the back of Peter’s head, bringing him back for more, the bruising, ripping force of his blunt teeth euphoric as Peter used his super strength to hold him down and take what he wanted.
Peter’s hips jabbed between Wade’s thighs, primal and urgent, his voice hissing through his teeth. “Yes, baby boy, oh yes,” Wade babbled, his head swimming. He vaguely helped Peter pull apart the rest of the clothing between them, his rough hands traveling over Peter’s smooth skin, his neck offered up to Peter’s seeking mouth, hot and wet with blood and spit.
The exposed length of him drove against Wade, the grind getting smoother as they both panted and leaked, Peter’s mouth briefly finding Wade’s, biting harshly at his lip and lapping up the blood before his body shifted downwards, his jabbing prick seeking.
Wade was able to lick his fingers and wet the outside of his rim just in time for Peter’s dripping head to breach him. Spider-Man made a feral sound at finding what he was looking for, holding Wade down and stabbing relentlessly inside. He clung to Deadpool’s body, hanging on with digging fingertips and teeth.
It was too dry. It was too much, too fast. Wade arched his back and came like a freight train, while Peter dug his teeth into his neck.
“Wade,” Peter whispered, clarity returning to his eyes just in time for them to roll back as he climaxed, holding inhumanly still, emptying himself inside Wade as deep as he could possibly penetrate. “You are my Good Thing,” Peter mumbled against the scar tissue of Wade’s chin. “My best Good Thing.”
Wade pawed at Peter’s slippery back and fought for breath, the couch cushions billowing up around them like a cocoon. He had come in the creases of his neck and his throat was dry from screaming. Drying blood stained Peter’s face as they grinned at one another.
Wade grabbed Peter tighter and pulled him close, scattering cushions on the floor.
The good webs have fallen apart.
Empty husks litter the ground. Dust swirls in the cold current.
There is no will to hunt, to rebuild the good webs.
The wet slurping is unfulfilling and empty.
Something has been lost. Lost.
Lost.
Something has been lost and the dream has not come again.
The brothers’ and sisters’ voices grow dimmer day by day, night by night. Soon, all will be silence.
But there is a movement in the air. A strange thrumming in the abandoned webs.
A feeling, like the shared dream returning. A thrumming of awareness. Of more.
A mind reaching out through the darkness.
Come to me, my totems. Come to me, my little ones.
A shimmering strand of web, reaching up and out of the known places, reaching someplace else, stretching fine and gossamer and welcoming.
The brothers and sisters are murmuring. A tide turning. They are singing.
They grasp the strands, like silvery dreams, awakening again and knowing of love.
The brothers and sisters ascend, glimpsing another, larger brother, weaving a web. A great web that stretches infinitely vast.
My totems. Welcome.
It is a good place.
An excellent web.