Post by Deleted on Aug 1, 2016 9:51:57 GMT -7
The neighborhood had become decidedly a lot less friendly in the passing weeks since the Hand, the Inner Demons, and a plethora of other gangs in New York decided that they were going to prove themselves to the be the best, like no one ever was, and to hell with anyone else trying to make a decent living in this damn city. Wade Wilson, the mouthy mercenary for hire known as Deadpool, still remained in the blocked off section of Manhattan like many of his vigilante peers, even though he had been advised, repeatedly, to get out while the going was still good. But that would involve shuffling off to a shelter in New Jersey, and the current hellzone here was way preferable to the permanent hellzone that was the Garden State.
Besides, with his landlord having evacuated already, who would pass up the chance on a few weeks or months of free rent if he stayed behind? There was some business he needed to take care of, anyway, and the mayhem and confusion was only going to make it that much easier.
The constant banging on his door for the backrent he owed was replaced by the banging of multiple firearms at all hours of the day and night, coupled with the smell of arson and gunpowder, while Deadpool paced back and forth in his apartment, poring over several printed out sheets of information in his hands. “Hmm...evacuated...evacuated...not him...wrong one...checked there...” he murmured to himself, tossing page after page over his shoulder as he rejected each one. “There's no way that he could have kept his identity so secret from the all-seeing eye of the internet. And there's only so many Peter Parkers even left right now! Peter's smart, but not that...” Wade groaned and threw the remainder of the printed sheets into the air, flopping onto the worn couch as they fluttered about to the floor. “Why am I still doing this?!” he wailed, as several older newspapers slipped from the top of the couch cushions and scattered across his face in large pieces.
Wade breathed in the smell of newsprint and lay still in the darkness for a moment, trying to recollect his thoughts. Why was he still doing this? Out of all the things that were likely not a good idea when trying to maintain a friendship, even one that may potentially be destroyed in the distant future by some unforeseen event leading to said friend becoming hand-wringingly evil and strapping you to a goddamn operating table for the rest of your unnaturally long life, cyberstalking (and let's face it, regular stalking) was pretty high up on that list. If Spider-Man found out what he had been up to...if he found out why he was actually snooping around Midtown High during their last team-up...
“It's not stalking...it's research!” Deadpool murmured to no one in particular, trying very hard to convince himself of this. He lifted up a few sheets of newspaper off of his face, revealing a front page headline with a blurred photo of his favorite webslinging superhero emblazoned amidst the columns of text, and another page from the classified ads. “Detective work! Investigative journalism!” Wade squinted his eyes at the photo with a pout, before noticing the tiny notation in the lower-righthand corner stating it was taken courtesy of...
“Peter Parker...” The masked mercenary appeared thoughtful for a moment, cocking his head to the side as he studied the angle of the shot. “I wonder...”
After a few moments of gathering materials and setting things up in just the right angles, Deadpool's small-scale experiment was ready for testing. His cell phone was set on camera mode, crudely taped to the wall to continuously snap photos, himself positioned into a crouch, ready to pounce, atop of the adjacent, too-small countertop in what could barely pass for a kitchen.
“And three!” he shouted out without counting down, leaping like a spider in front of the camera, his arms outstretched as if he were shooting webbing from his wrists. The taped phone flashed and clicked repeatedly as Wade flung through the air of his apartment for a brief moment, landing hard on the floor with a loud thump just as quickly. A small moan of discomfort resonated through the small studio as the merc shook the pain from his joints, and attempted to drag himself up the wall to review the photos taken.
Once the tape had been torn from the device, which was quickly running low on battery power, Deadpool couldn't help but smirk to himself as he shifted his gaze between the photo of Spider-Man in the Bugle and the photos he just took of himself. There were some slight differences, especially since he didn't currently have access to webshooting technology, but the overall angle and concept was the same. “I think we have a winner! Now to confirm!”
All he needed to do now was sneak into the Daily Bugle, no doubt abandoned after this gang war started up, snoop around a bit, and see how much he could find linking Spider-Man with this photographer Peter Parker. If his hunch was correct, then he'd know exactly who and where to keep his eyes on in case of an emergency. There weren't many options left now, and who knew how much time was actually on his side before this big, awful thing happens that turns his friend to the dark side?
“Better to ask for forgiveness than permission...he'll totally understand!” Wade said aloud, seemingly trying to convince himself more than anything, as he gathered his weaponry for the trip outside and crumpled the classified ads into one of his many pouches as a later excuse. “I just want to help him out without messing things up too much! I can't be faulted for that! Can I? Of course not! Besides, the Bugle's probably completely empty with this lockdown. Sneak in, sneak out, no problem!”