Chapter Text
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Wade wakes. His hand is under the pillow, gripping the handle of his gun, unlocking the safety. He sits up. A lifetime of honed instinct and years of rigorous military training pinpoint the shadow against the dark of his bedroom. He fires—one-two-three times—the rapid pops loud despite the long silencer affixed to the end.
The shadow dodges the bullets—
Jumps up—
Sticks to the ceiling—
Wade's gun follows and—
People can't stick to the ceiling, Wade thinks, logic creeping in. A dream?
A hesitation. His finger goes slack on the trigger at the same time a near silent thwip emanates from the shadow above him. Something cool and vaguely sticky hits his hand and coats his gun. He tries to move his fingers on the grip and cannot.
"The fuck?" Wade snaps as the shadow above him says in a deceptively friendly tenor, "Nightmare?"
The shadow drops, feet landing softly upon the bare wooden floorboards. The lamp on the bedside table is switched on and—
"Oh," the shadow says, freezing in place, one hand on the lamp pull, as Wade says again, more loudly, "The fuck?"
The shadow is a man in red-and-blue spandex. Large, white lenses dominate his mask and black piping radiates like a web over every inch of his body. A stylized spider sits atop his sternum, an obvious target Wade keeps his gun trained on. They stare at each other. Wade is sure that the shadow is taking the details of him in too: his scar, his hard-earned and hard-kept muscles, his sleep-wild hair. Wade cannot tell who is more surprised, him or his oddly dressed intruder.
"What are you supposed to be?" Wade asks incredulously. "Some sort of... man-spider?"
"Spiderman, actually," answers the spider-man faintly.
"Of course, how silly of me." Wade glances at his immobile hand. Both his hand and his gun are covered in gauzy, white fiber not unlike spider silk, and since he's not ready to process what the hell that is, his eyes flit back to the spider-man. The body beneath the costume is lean and corded with muscle. Wade's eyes drift down from the curve of the spider-man's shoulders to the narrow taper of his waist, assessing.
"I'm not here to hurt you," the spider-man blurts, stepping back from the bed and holding both hands palm out. A plea for deescalation. "So don't do it."
"Don't do what?"
"Shoot your gun. The webbing around your hand dissipates force about a hundred times better than Kevlar, so the bullet won't make it half an inch out of the barrel. You'll just hurt your hand—trust me, I've seen it."
Wade hums. Tries to wriggle his fingers again. Again cannot move them, even a little. He thinks briefly about how quickly he could grab the Bowie knife taped to the underside of his bed frame. Quick enough, he supposes, though truthfully, he doesn't think he needs to. The spike of adrenaline that woke him has faded and he cannot discern any negative intent radiating from his surprise visitor, which is... odd. Usually people who sneak up on Wade are trying to kill him.
Put another tally into the dream category, Wade thinks, and lets his incapacitated hand fall to the mattress. Aloud, he asks, "So are you here to kill me, my little arachnid assassin?"
"Kill you?"
"Murder me. Turn me into worm food. End my earthly career. Put me six feet under. Make'a me sleep with the fishes—"
"Do you have to butcher the accent like that?"
"Bumped. Smoked. Whacked. Snuffed. Offed. Iced—"
"Oh my god, shut up," the spider-man says, but there's an edge of laughter in his voice. "Jesus, this is weird enough without you listing as many murder euphemisms as you possibly can."
"You're the one standing in my bedroom dressed like a Power Ranger reject," Wade points out. "But hey, dreams are weird. For example, mine usually involve more lingerie than second degree criminal trespass. And no matter how skin-tight your costume is, I don't think what you're wearing qualifies as sexy underwear. It's more like... one of those BDSM leather bodysuits. Do you think this is my subconscious's way of telling me that I need to open myself up to new experiences?"
"Wait wait wait wait wait," the spider-man says quickly, slurring the syllables together. "What do you mean, dream?"
"I mean that as much as I would love to be handed a vaguely anthropomorphized arachnid stuffed into the body of the hottest twink alive, the real world just don't work like that."
"Twink?" The spider-man's voice hits a high note.
"That can't be the first time you've heard that, baby boy." Wade smiles at him. It's the same, wide and charming smile he uses when he wants to get laid or get in a fight. "And you've just beat out Cary Elwes for first place on my 'Dudes in Tights I Would Bang' list."
The spider-man freezes once again. The stylized lenses of his mask haven't moved, but the line of his shoulders and his sudden stillness convey his shock perfectly as he tentatively says, "... Wade?"
"Yes. Obviously." Wade rolls his eyes. "Aren't figments of my subconscious mind supposed to know who I am? Oh, wait! Maybe you're my id trying to communicate a hitherto unknown kink which, that ass? I'll toss your salad until there ain't nothing but ranch."
"Yeeeep." The spider-man pops the p. "Wow. You're definitely Wade Wilson."
"In the flesh! Or, umm, whatever not-flesh non-corporeal bodies are made of. Really makes you wanna get all philosophical, doesn't it? Nature of reality, value of truth and knowledge, all that Plato shit, blah blah blah." Wade jazz hands using only his unwebbed left hand. His right hand and gun are still immobilized. Wade doesn't know if he's impressed or frustrated by the continuity.
"Wade," the spider-man says slowly. "This isn't a dream."
"Of course it's a dream," Wade answers. "And not to like, rush you or anything, but I'm bored, and also really curious as to what the next stage of this subconscious sequence is. Are we gonna bump uglies in ye ol' human tradition? Does this spider theme extend past foreplay? Oh! Are you gonna bundle me up in a blanket of cobwebs? Drink my blood while you fuck me? Bite off my—"
"What? No! Wade, I don't drink blood or bite anything off—"
"But the cobweb bondage is still on the table? I have to say, this stuff is ridiculously strong. Does it come out your butt?"
"My—? Nononono—it comes from my wrist canisters!" The man holds up a hand and shows him a small lump beneath the red fabric and a trigger mechanism that protrudes subtly from it. "And before you ask, it's a polymer I developed that mimics the properties of spider silk. I synthesize it in a lab. It's definitely not... organic."
Wade's shoulders slump and he pouts. "I don't know why I find that disappointing."
"Neither do I." Then, "Out of curiosity, why do you think you're dreaming?"
"Exhibit A: the didn't-come-out-your-butt polymer." Wade holds up the white mass covering his right hand and gun, and waves it around a bit for emphasis. The webbing is surprisingly lightweight for how ridiculously strong it is. "Exhibit B: you were on the ceiling two minutes ago."
"And that's... unusual?"
"Where I come from, yes. And Saskatchewan churns out some real fucking weirdos."
"So there's no one like me here? At all?"
"Nope! You're the first arachnid-themed twink I've ever seen."
"Mazel tov," Arachni-twink says, but he sounds more dazed than sarcastic. He crosses his arms over his chest and absently rubs his chin, obviously thinking. "This... might sound weird but how much do you know about the multiverse? Alternate universes? Parallel realities?"
Wade wonders why his brain would rather play out this borderline mundane scenario than a much sexier or scarier (or scarily sexier) (or sexily scarier) version of a wet dream, but hey. Even the most exciting rollercoasters have their boring bits. Might as well play along.
"Not really. Why?" Wade cocks his head to the side. "Do you have a sexy evil mustache under that mask?"
"Negatory, Captain. Not from Roddenberry's mirror universe." He flashes a quick ta'al. "And do you know anything about the Avengers?"
"I'm guessing they're not a boy band."
"Superheroes?"
"Last summer blockbuster was funny enough but lacked the real emotional substance of its predecessors."
"Weapon X?"
"Can't say I know her."
"And... the cancer?"
"El cancer?" Wade shrugs. "Yeah, we have that here. Mom died of it when I was five. Got a small bout myself a few years ago and—let me tell you—that radiation therapy shits sucks balls. Also took one of my balls. But hey, still swinging." A pause. "Half swinging? What's the terminology here?"
The spider-man hesitates before saying, more quietly, "...And Peter?"
"Pumpkin eater? Had a wife? Couldn't keep her?"
"Yeah, uh, something like that," the spider-man says. Then, mostly to himself, "Oh, okay, ouch."
Wade hears the strange undercurrent of real hurt which.
Huh.
Can dream people feel hurt? Wade wonders.
They fall into a second silence. This one lasts longer than the first. The spider-man standing by Wade's bed has lost himself completely in thought, muttering incomprehensibly under his breath and tap-tap-tapping one booted foot against the floor. Wade has no idea what said thoughts are about, but they look intense. At one point, he takes a cellphone out from a hidden pocket and attempts to use it; he even opens the window and stretches out as far as he can to get a signal, and is unsuccessful.
"Okay okay okay," the spider-man says after he comes back inside. Wade, who had turned his focus to futilely picking at the webbing around his right hand, looks back up at him. "Um, well, firstly, I just want to say that, uh, I'm sorry I broke into your apartment at three in the morning. This is... my apartment in my universe. I just wanted to go home and sleep. I did not mean to wake you up and scare you and make you shoot at me."
"You're apologizing to me for... shooting at you?"
"Yes. That is what I am doing."
"Weird flex but okay." Wade shrugs. "Apology accepted."
"Secondly, I would like to revise my previous assertion that all of this is not a dream." The spider-man moves his pointer finger in broad circles, as though to encompass what he means by 'all-of-this'. "What is happening right here, right now, is one-hundred-and-ten percent a fever dream. And it was brought on by the, uh, the bad beef lo mein you ate before bed."
There is something strange in the spider-man's tone and body language that makes Wade sit up straighter. He doesn't know why. Instinct, maybe, or awareness of a shift in mood. But Wade's gut is what kept him alive through special ops and mercenary work and his cancer scare, so he's learned to pay attention and—more importantly—listen.
"How the fuck do you know that?" Wade asks, eyes narrowing. He thinks again of his trusty Bowie knife. "Did you dig around in my fridge as recon or some shit? Because questionable leftovers are sacred, a holy secret meant to be between a man and his god. I'd rather you look at the questionable porn stash underneath my mattress."
"Weeeeeell," the spider-man says. "Since this is a dream, and I'm part of the dream that you are dreaming, dream-me who is actually dream-you knows that the beef lo mein is making you dream crazy things. Crazy things like Spiderman—"
"Oh, I hear the capitalization now."
"—climbing on the ceiling and babbling on about the multiverse. And it had to be a dream because superpowers aren't real, and superheroes aren't real, and the manipulation of space-time is purely theoretical. In this universe." He pauses and says, slowly, "Which is... the only... universe. Yeah."
And suddenly—
Overwhelmingly—
Gracelessly—
Wade knows to his bones that this is not a dream.
This is real.
This is real.
A spider-themed superhero from a parallel universe broke into his apartment.
The epiphany hits him hard, as most epiphanies do, and he laughs at the absurdity of it. Spiderman watches Wade as he laughs harder and harder and harder, until his cheeks are wet from his leaking eyes and he's clutching his abdomen and he's choking on every painful inhale. It hurts and it verges on hysterical, but what else is Wade supposed to do? There's a man from another fucking reality standing less than four feet away.
This is the thought that cycles through Wade's brain on repeat. A man from another reality. A man from another reality. A man from another reality. Wade's never been real book-smart; he has a knack for languages, and if it involves fighting or fucking, he's a goddamned savant, but he's never been a memorize-and-regurgitate kinda guy, so the concept of other universes existing alongside his own has always been in the realm of sci-fi. He's never bothered with the nitty gritty of it or thought about it too long. It has always been a concept beyond himself, like black holes or string theory or teleportation. Cool, but largely irrelevant.
But now?
Maybe Wade wouldn't be so overwhelmed if he hadn't seen Spiderman crawling on the ceiling. If his hand and gun weren't wrapped up in a weird white goo unlike anything he's encountered before. Perhaps if Wade were literally anyone else, he would be less affected. But Wade's had to learn to take in the reality of a situation without hesitation, to accept the improbable and strange instantly, to adapt. Ignoring the truth only gets people killed and, well, there's a reason Wade's in his mid-thirties and still kicking.
The hysteria wanes eventually and Wade's existential crisis laughter lessens to intermediate hiccuping. His sides hurt. He scrubs the wetness off his cheeks and Spiderman asks, "You don't think you're dreaming anymore, do you."
It isn't a question.
Wade answers anyway.
"Not really, no." Wade's voice is raspy. "It's just that... you're a spectacularly shitty liar."
"Yeah." Spiderman sighs. Deeply. Puts his masked face in one gloved hand and rubs at his eyes in a multi-universal display of begrudging acceptance. "So I've been told."
"I mean, you're so bad at it that I immediately believed all the bullshit you were saying before just because you tried to lie about what I already thought was the truth."
"Wade..."
"I have, like, so many questions." Wade pulls his comforter off and gets out of bed. Standing, he finds that he's almost a head taller than his late-night visitor, who barely moves away or acknowledges Wade's ridiculous pajama pants. Interesting. "But I'll start with some easy ones. Firstly, can you get your webbing off my hand and, secondly, do you like pancakes?"
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