Wade Wilson's Guide to Studying Your Spider

Chapter 2: On the Acid

Spider-Man didn't kick the door down like Wade was expecting. Nor did he punch his head through the wall, cackling "HERE'S SPIDEY!" Instead, Spider-Man's shadow shuffled anxiously.

"Hey," he paused. "Devil and I were going to grab something to eat. Do you want to join us?"

Wade's grip tightened around the mop he was forcing into a chokehold.

"Yep," he said, too shrilly. "Yepper depper. Be right there. Gotta finish putting McMop out of his misery first. Save some chow-mein for me, would you? Okay, ha ha, bye now."

Spider-Man hesitated, but slowly retreated. Wade waited 5 minutes to make sure he was gone before releasing his breath. He pretended to tidy up the closet, rearranging all the bottles and boxes as best he could in the low light, and sprayed Windex in his eyes for good measure, before gathering enough courage to leave the closet.

Heh. Been a while since we've been IN the closet, eh big guy? How's it feel?

"Peachy keen," Wade grumbled.

He expected to get yelled at. Or threatened into keeping his mouth shut. Get accused of being irresponsible and ruining everything. He expected his strange friendship with Spider-Man to come to a grinding halt, and for Spider-Man to tell him to leave New York and never come back. Maybe even throw him out himself.

The Avengers would've. The X-Men have done so. The Fantastic Four barely interacted with him, but give it time.

Instead, a miracle happened.

Spider-Man didn't bring it up.

He couldn't meet Wade's eyes for the rest of the night, and their banter was too tight and awkward to be normal (as if they were both treading a hazy line), but Spider-Man pretended it never happened, and so Wade did the same.

They both took the easy route and avoided a confrontation neither was prepared for.

That was several months ago, and Wade still didn't know his name.

Finding out who Spider-Man was would've been easy enough. Especially now that Wade's seen his face. It was all he needed to track the hero down, map out his friends, enemies, and lovers, and memorize his daily schedule. This is what Wade did for a living, and he's the best at what he does.

Except he didn't do any of that. Why? Because where Spider-Man was concerned, these were all off-limit boundaries. And while Wade crossed a lot of boundaries, he refused to treat Spider-Man like another job.

But that didn't stop him from watching Spider-Man.

Yes, that sounded bad, but let him explain. He's only started doing it recently. It's not like he was hiding underneath Spider-Man's porch or peeping through his windows to catch a peek. He wasn't doing it for malicious reasons.

It's for science.

Like right now. Wade hunkered low by a window, peering through his military-grade binoculars, tracking his subject of interest. No matter what Spider-Man said, being a mercenary had its perks. Like giving him the salary to afford equipment that would make the US military drool like salivating dogs. Besides, it's this, or watch Spider-Man through his sniper scope, and Wade had a feeling the sniper would make this look 10x worse than it was.

For all the time Wade spent with Spider-Man, he still didn't know the extent of his spider-sense. It's a hard motherfucker to pin down, which is ridiculous because it sounds so simple on paper. "Danger sense: a 6th sense that warns him of danger." Simple and straightforward.

Turns out, it's frustratingly more complicated than that.

It didn't just warn Spider-Man of enormous dangers, like bombs or speeding trucks, but minor dangers too, like a too-hot pizza and flu germs. On the rare occasion that Spider-Man opened up, he mentioned that it also works on his family and friends, letting him know when they were in danger. How in the frick-frack-paddy-wack did that work?