Spider-man and Fubuki/Spider-Blizzard

22. Spider-man and Deadpool

Including collateral damage.

The only difference was that Deadpool had been hired to kill a mark.

But the man hadn't killed anyone while they had been working together. It was Spider-man's one and only rule: no deaths.

And the other man followed it.

Knives that would have ended up in a head or throat now lodged in a shoulder or a thigh. His blades cut into limbs, missing the main blood vessels. Tendons were severed, but the victims didn't bleed out. And the one time a katana got stuck inside a would-be rapist, it missed all major organs and was simply an agonizing wound. And decapitations had gone down to zero.

Trying to make Deadpool leave his weapons behind was like asking Spider-man to leave the stingers behind, maybe even his whole outfit. They were a part of Deadpool. They were also parts he didn't use unless necessary.

Spider-man had watched him fight with blunt force, pulling a gun when things got a little too dicey, and he had simply shot out a kneecap. The man was a skilled fighter, extremely dangerous, absolutely deadly even without a gun or a knife.

Deadpool was holding back.

He was still learning, exuding less and less force, and the twitches toward his guns became more infrequent.

"You can't expect him to show mercy. Not in his nature. I've never seen him show remorse." Captain America tilted his head a little, looking intrigued. "I know he hasn't killed anyone on your watch, Spider-man, but taking a life is easy for him. Like grocery shopping. He won't think much of blowing someone's brains out. You can't trust him."

But Michael did.

After a while he had no explanation as to the why and when. It had happened. Spider-man trusted Deadpool, despite everything he knew or had seen. It was like an instinct, like a spider sense he hadn't felt like this before.

"So how is he any different compared to you or Black Widow?" Spider-man asked coldly. "You and she are just as morally flexible as Deadpool."

Captain America didn't look too shocked, just slightly surprised, then he smiled coolly. "In many ways he's not. We are all trained soldiers. Deadpool's just all that, with the added bonus of his preternatural side, and absolutely uncontrollable. Unpredictable. And insane," the Avenger added forcefully.

'Aren't we all?' Michael thought, eyes on the streets again, watching. He was still a highschool student swinging through the streets on a webline who just about managed to feed himself on his part-time job and sell pictures of his alter ego to a paper that tore him a new one every issue they printed. He had been a child when he had started, learning by doing, teaching himself about his powers and abilities. Everything he was... was self-made.

"You might find yourself on his hit list one day," Captain America drove his point home, "if someone decides you should be out of the picture and has enough money to pay him. He wouldn't think twice. He will take the money and you'll have a bullet between the eyes."

He turned his head, looking coldly at the other man. "And again, how is that different from you and Black Widow? Before SHIELD. Maybe even now?"

Captain America's lips became a thin line. "We still have a working conscience."

"Who defines what your conscience has to be like to be considered working?"

"Spider-man, listen..."

He held up a hand. "No, I heard you. I understand it all. But this is my decision and mine alone," he repeated again in a more dark tone. "Stay out of my life, Captain America. I'm not an Avenger. You're not my guardian or my fucking mother! I've made my decision and I trust my instincts."