Summary: …or the five times the Avengers kill Deadpool for Bruce, and the one time Bruce doesn't let them.

Disclaimer: I don't own Deadpool or the Avengers or really anything MARVEL-related. Nobody pays me for writing this.

Warnings: pre-slash, crack, naughty language level: Deadpool, explicit explicitness, violence, gore, insanity, annoyed Nick Fury, lots and lots of character death (though it doesn't stick), POV? what is POV?, cliché

A/N: I can't take it anymore! This has been finished for a while, and by now I feel like Wade's puppy dog eyes are following me around the room with the hurt, reproachful question of 'why isn't this posted yet?'. Yeah, okay. Here goes.

You know, I tried to think of an excuse, but I have none. None. YOLO.

x

Match Made in the U.S. Government's Labs

x

Zero

x

The city of New York photogenically smoked in the background. The screaming had since faded out as the last civilians in the vicinity were either dead or evacuated, and the Avengers beat down the straggling remnants of their opposition.

The street was jam-packed with cars far as eye could see, sidewalks littered with pieces of robots. And people. But mostly robots.

A madman in a black and red spandex suit came running over the roofs of the cars, sword raised in each hand. He sprung and attacked from high, bellowing: "Geronimo!"

The Hulk swatted him out of the air into the concrete wall of the nearest building. Most of the resulting mush ran down, gathered on window ledges and resulted in a dire necessity of a paint job.

A little bit trickled down the rain drain into the sewers.

When Wade put himself back together and that weird growing feeling in his stomach hadn't stopped, he suspected feelings – he just wasn't sure if he was too pissed off to function or in love.

"There's room for only one too-pissed-to-function person in the relationship," said the yellow box. "And it definitely ain't you."

x

One

x

"Consider it logically, Big B! How many people are there you can really let loose with, without getting all aflutter scared you're gonna fuck them into road-kill? I mean, you'd fuck me into road-kill, too, but I'd walk it off. And it's two people, but who really wants Logan to scratch up their back in the middle of the fun parts? Nobody, I tell you."

Natasha, sitting on the railing, peered over the top of Bruce's head. "I can kill him for you. It wouldn't stick, but it would take him a while to get up again."

"It could make you feel better," suggested Clint, with a not entirely playful shudder. "It definitely will make me feel better."

"Bruce," Tony implored, "this is clearly a Hulk Smash scenario."

Silence fell. Everybody was looking around – and pointedly avoiding looking at Steve. Tony shuffled his feet.

Steve either didn't get that he was supposed to be the voice of temperance and speak up against murder, or else he was too tired of always being relied on as the Avengers' somewhat busted up moral compass, because he said: "…no one would think ill of you, I promise."

Deadpool slapped his palm to his chest to indicate how Steve's words hurt him. "Don't leave me hanging here, Dr Sexy! One of these days all of us will get cliché-bingo'd and you'll want to have a buddy for the inevitable fuck-or-die trope. Aliens. Sex pollen. Magic. Big green monster diddling an innocent almost-virginal team member. How 'bout it, Doc? And don't tell me you're not gay. It's like in prison. Situational homosexuality. Situation: fanfic."

Bruce took a deep breath and sighed. Deadpool was an ill man, and Bruce was inclined to pity him despite the ridiculously high kill count – he tried not to be a hypocrite, and he knew what he was like when he was in pain (namely big, green and violent).

"…plus, think about it: angry sex." Deadpool punctuated this sentence with a pelvic thrust.

Bruce turned wide, helpless eyes to his teammates.

Tony raised a hand and repulsored the mercenary in the face. And off the bridge.

x

Two

x

As soon as Thor started talking at Loki in that injured, entreating tone, the battle was over. The Avengers knew it, the Warriors Three knew it, SHIELD knew it… And that should have been everyone on the scene, only the shooting and the stabbing and the roars of rage and pain continued.

The team – sans Thor – slowly congregated around an abandoned hot dog stand. Tony put an IOU into the till and wheedled Steve into showing off his hot-dog-assembling skill. Which, to the general surprise, was considerable.

"Just mustard for me, thanks," said Clint. He took his bounty and retreated to take a call on his cell phone, switching off the comm.

Natasha fondly watched his back – until she felt someone watching hers.

When she turned around, there was an infamous weirdo – in a red-and-black spandex suit, wiping off a katana – standing next to her. He idly dodged her reflexive stab.

"Clint and his es-oh, right?" he quipped. "I never know if he means 'supervising officer' or 'significant other'. Good thing they're the same person, eh?"

Natasha frowned. She had known that he was good at his job – had to be to get hired, considering the competition – but she had honestly thought his success was owed entirely to his absurd healing factor.

But he had managed to sneak up on her.

He knew confidential information about Clint.

She was actually worried about this development…

…for once, Bruce honestly would have preferred to remain 'hulked-out' (thank you, Tony, for making sure that verb caught on) even after the fighting was over, but he had been running on fumes already before the call to assemble had been sent out.

Bruce shrank, and when he came to, there was a shock blanket wrapped around him and a metal-encased arm around his waist, keeping him upright.

He forgave Tony about the verb.

"So," Tony's modulated voice sounded from his speakers, "is it just me or was this easier than we expected?"

"We had… help," said Natasha, striding up to them with a sour expression that was usually reserved for Tony or the few enemies they fought who were unwise enough to make sexist remarks to the Black Widow's face.

"Hello, my eventual penitentiary butt-friend," said Deadpool, crawling out of a manhole, awkward like a lame snail and smelling of sewer. Even with his face entirely covered, he managed to convey the impression of a beaming grin in Bruce's direction as he climbed to his feet. "Sorry about the coiffure, but your pet spider just dunked me in crap. I think she doesn't like me."

"Hey, Wade," Clint said companionably, smiling widely.

"Hey, Clinton Francis. Fuck, I hate that name."

Clint went in for a bro-hug; in the middle of the motion he switched his grip on Deadpool's shoulders and stuffed an arrow down his throat.

Tony glimpsed the blinking red light on the end of the arrow shaft sticking out of Deadpool's mouth and stepped in front of Bruce a second before-

There was an explosion and then a Dolby Surround sound of splatter all about. Steve glanced out from where he had crouched behind his shield. A ragged piece of bloody meat fell off with a sucking sound and revealed the originally white star underneath. The star was now sort of pinkish.

Even Steve looked mildly traumatized at the sight.

Clint stared at the pair of red-clad legs that slowly, almost gracefully, fell over in the middle of the road. Then he looked around the gore zone. He whistled.

Natasha came up behind him and smacked the back of his head. "Durak."

x

Three

x

"Oho!" Thor exclaimed, brandishing his Hammer above his head.

This would have been almost par for the course, except that he was riding on the back of a T-Rex through the streets of Manhattan. It still wasn't weird enough for the human contingent of the Avengers to move from their vantage point on the roof of the Guggenheim Museum.

Hulk punched the T-Rex' knee, scoring a glancing blow.

The giant lizard made the terminal mistake of attempting to gnaw off the Hulk's shoulder.

The Hulk roared, punched the same knee again, and this time shattered the joint completely. The dinosaur went down, screeching and trashing and nearly trapping Thor under it.

"Hulk smash!" Hulk informed his audience.

"Awesome freaking job, buddy!" replied the Iron Man, raising both thumbs up to show his appreciation.

"Please tell me I'm having hallucinations," said Clint.

"You're not," growled Natasha. "We need to get down there."

"Gosh darn it," Steve pressed out between his teeth as they scrambled. He actually meant the original content of that phrase, and immediately felt ashamed for blaspheming.

Deadpool was standing in front of the Hulk, wearing a three-piece suit. He was extending his hand with three tulips. All three drooped tragically, and one looked like someone had chewed on it, but there was something disarmingly inept about the whole gesture.

Deadpool managed to make his awkwardness almost charming.

"Will you go on a date with me?" he asked.

The Hulk took the tulips from Deadpool's hand. And ate them.

Deadpool gaped at him for a while and then shrugged. "Sure thing. I mean, I prefer onions when it comes to bulbs, but our differences are what makes us different. Different is good. Like, imagine if everybody was like me. The world would be kinda kerflooey."

"Kr'foo," agreed the big green guy, and demonstrated by punching the T-Rex again. At this point it was an empty gesture, because Thor had since smashed its head via judicious application of Mjolnir.

"He?!" Coulson exclaimed somewhere in a tactical van, echoing through the comm line.

"You!" Thor's bellow followed almost immediately afterwards, though that was a coincidence, because Thor had – as per usual – fried his comm within a minute into the battle. Or joyride, as it looked from his point of view.

"Me!" Deadpool agreed. "Wade Winston Wilson, at Big Boy's service! I'm all about service. Ing. Servicing. Price negotiable. But, be advised, I am a pretty good negotiator."

Hulk stared. And then he shrunk. Thor immediately offered his cape to preserve Bruce's modestly, for which he was gifted with a lopsided smile.

"Don't let him get away!" Coulson ordered. "He just murdered Congressman Levsen-"

"Deadpool, you are under arrest," said Steve, face pinched with righteous indignation, "for murder-"

"They were very bad people," Deadpool argued, dancing out of Steve's reach.

A box, which no one but him could perceive in any way, commented: "Shouldn't have hired us for a bad job under false pretenses."

Deadpool nodded, dodging another grab. "They pissed off the wrong person. And they did it intentionally. They deserved to go sleep with the fishes."

"That's for when you drown people," nitpicked Tony.

"Oh." Deadpool paused to deliberate. And, seemingly without even noticing Steve, dodged another lunge. "Go hang?"

Coulson sighed. "Don't, Stark-"

"Take a load off," Tony counter-suggested, and almost shared a high-five with Deadpool, except that in the next moment it was Deadpool that had had a load taken off – 'load' being the upper half of his body in this context.

He fell to the ground in two parts, revealing Natasha, who was standing behind him and holding one of his katana that she had borrowed for an arguably philanthropic purpose.

Bruce sighed and rubbed his temple – only the one, because his other hand was occupied holding Thor's cape closed around himself. "You know, he's not really that annoying."

"He is that annoying," Natasha assured him, examining the weapon in her hand and eventually choosing to discard it on Deadpool's temporary corpse. "You're just comparing him to Ross, who is relatively more annoying. You have a skewed baseline, solnyshko."

Bruce sighed again. "I do often wish that Ross would just… go away."

"I'm working on it, babe," Tony assured him, and with a couple of – annoying – nudges to Bruce's shoulder herded him toward the quinjet.

x

Four

x

A phone chimed out a generic Morse code for S-M-S, and Tony pouted.

"You changed it," he whined at Bruce as Bruce pulled his Starkphone (with a honeycomb cover, after he had nixed anything green – sometimes Tony couldn't let go of a joke even after it had been beaten dead) out of the pocket of his white mad scientist's coat.

You could tell it was a mad scientist's coat by the sticker on the back that said 'MAD SCIENTIST'.

There was an explanation for this sticker. This explanation sounded like: 'Tony.'

There was, however, no explanation for the text message. It read: 'I wanna be Ur bby.'

"Jarvis," Bruce asked, "is this a prank? I know Clint mentioned creating fake dating webpage profiles, but I didn't think people actually did this in real life…?"

"Dr Banner, your phone number is confidential information, and I assure you that none of the Avengers would have publicized it. For any reason, much less a juvenile one."

"Jay's right," Tony agreed. "Not even I would and, let's face it, there isn't that much I wouldn't do in the name of fun. Hence the text alert." Which used to be Hulk's roar before Bruce had to be boring about it.

'Who is this?' Bruce texted back.

A reply came within thirty seconds: 'Ur future fellow criminal of 3, BB, its shrt fr Big Boy butt fr Bruce Banner 2 wich is neat & nicknames R my chimichanga butt U can !call me! 3 Wade.'

"That's some typing speed," Tony mused with just a hint of admiration. "Also, diction."

"How did he get my phone number?" Bruce asked, turning the phone away from Tony.

Tony's forehead scrunched up in one of the serious frowns he always tried to hide from people. "Good goddamn question."

Bruce typed a reply.

"Jarvis, lift the creep's digits and find him," Tony ordered. "If he cracked our security, I need to know how."

There was another S-M-S beeping sequence.

"I make my living by stalking people," Bruce translated. He glanced up. "Guess he must be good at it in this business." He sounded almost unaffected.

"In the business of bounty hunting?" Tony snarked. "How are we on the location, Jay?"

"We have it," answered JARVIS, "although I venture to say that the effort has been redundant."

The holodisplay Tony had been using to tinker with the plans for his new kitchen robot (and by robot he meant an android that would have all the abilities of a chef, a butcher, a sommelier, a waiter, a maid and possibly also a stripper, judging by the costume that was definitely going to result in Natasha punching Tony in the face) flickered out and the nearest wall-mounted screen turned on to show breaking news footage of the White House.

"-the police has just confirmed," the reporter insisted emphatically, complete with over-exaggerated facial expressions, "that among the victims are the recently appointed Senator and U.S. Army General Thaddeus Ross, and his close co-worker and personal friend Colonel Talbot. The comprehensive list of victims will be released after the identification has been completed. According to eye-witness accounts, the mass-murder could not have taken more than two minutes, and the security was only alerted afterwards. The perpetrator was finally apprehended through the heroic action of our very own Captain America, and the footage shows him falling to a clearly fatal strike with the iconic shield. However, we must ask ourselves – are the security measures at the White House suffi-"

Tony's throat-cutting motion had JARVIS turn the feed off, but when Tony looked at Bruce, he found him watching the beginning of the news bite on his laptop, calculations running in the background.

There was a shot of the white façade of the White House, graffitied with what looked a lot like blood. The writing read 'BE MY VALENTiNE XOXO' with a heart instead of the dot on 'i'.

"Am I allowed to say that this is a really, really thoughtful Valentine's present?" inquired Tony, standing on tiptoes so he could watch over Bruce's shoulder.

"It's November," Bruce pointed out dryly.

Tony rolled his eyes. "It's the thought that counts, babe."

x

Five

x

"Don't laugh," Bruce said cagily, "but I honestly thought this wouldn't happen to me anymore."

He felt terribly desolate curled up in the corner of the cell with only an unconscious AIM guard for company. The sunny yellow suit did brighten up the otherwise drab place, but Bruce had lost interest in the man after he had divested him of the phone.

The funny moment was when Bruce realized that he was so used to technology remembering the little things for him that he only knew one number by heart. He had learnt it because Tony and JARVIS kept deleting it from his contacts.

Not that the decision whether to call had been difficult, if the alternative was AIM experimenting on him.

"Hate to be the bearer of bad news, my hunky love monster, but they don't ever stop. Ever, ever. You go to sleep at home with all your stabby and shooty precious', and wake up in a cell strapped down and vivisected. Or being vivisected. Healing factor's a bitch, Dr Sexy. They never get the dose right. This one time I open my eyes and there's a dude with his hand up to the wrist in my lung."

"What did you do?" Bruce inquired, morbidly fascinated.

"What I always do in these situations."

"Scream?" Bruce guessed.

"Like a baby giving birth to another baby," Deadpool confirmed. "They ever pull out your vital organ?"

"Uh…" Bruce tried to remember. "No, not really. I tend to go green before it gets that far."

"Lucky. Once I was stuck with these doctors, actual proper M.D. doctors, not like rocket science nerds – no judging, pygmy puff – for maybe a year or so. I swear they took five hundred kidneys out of me. I think they were selling them on the black market. Must have made a fucking fortune."

"Did you kill them?" Bruce asked, for once maybe wanting to hear an affirmative answer.

"No…"

"But?"

"But I tranqued them and pulled out their kidneys. I even sewed them up afterwards. Now they know what it's like. Fair's fair."

"I'm sorry," Bruce said softly, squashing a pulse of vindictive glee.

"No regrets," Deadpool replied, appearing on the other side of the triple-glazed, shatter-proof and apparently also soundproof glass wall. "'sides, I was more traumatized by my three-stops-long Underground ride coming to get you. Underground is traumatizing. All the swag. I try to hide behind Jewish grandmas, but they're all so small I need at least four of them. And even then I've got to crouch." He brandished a dismembered hand wrapped in a remnant of a yellow sleeve, and pressed it to the control panel. The door hissed open, and suddenly he was in stereo: "Haven't been traumatized like that since I asked for a clown for my fourth birthday party and Ronald McDonald turned up at our door."

Then the alarm sounded.

"Huh," Deadpool mused, looking upwards. "Didn't think I've left anyone alive enough to press the panic button."

"I know that sound," Bruce commented. He unwound from his crouch. He seriously considered stripping the yellow suit off of the heavily concussed guard, but in the end he decided that nudity was less undignified and, anyway, he was used to it.

"That 'fzow' sound or that 'thump-clink-thump' sound or that 'crash-boom' sound or that 'aaargh' sound?" Deadpool inquired.

"The lot," Bruce admitted with a sigh. "It's the team. They found me."

"So, you don't need a rescue?" asked his rescuer, sounding hurt.

"I definitely needed a rescue," Bruce assured him. "Thanks for coming."

"You're the boo," Deadpool explained. "It's in the rules-"

"Bruce!" Steve yelled, rushing down the corridor. "You're alright! It's so good to… see… you…" He trailed off when he realized just how much of Bruce he could see.

"Looking good, big guy!" Tony called over. Despite the armor's modulation, the grin in his voice was clearly audible.

"Hate to say it, but I gotta agree with Stark," added Clint.

"Seconded, but," said Natasha-

("Butt!" Deadpool giggled and took an indiscreet look at Bruce's.)

-who appeared out of nowhere, carrying a white mad scientist's coat. This one didn't have anything written on it, but by now it wasn't necessary; they all recognized a mad scientist's coat when they saw one.

Bruce gratefully put it on and buttoned it up, resigned to walking through the partially blown-up and corpse-strewn AIM base barefoot.

"Poo," Tony said to Natasha, who ignored him, too busy downloading everything from AIM's computers.

"Seconded," Deadpool said. And then turned to answer the thin air: "I thought they just didn't notice me here. Rude."

"You were standing next to a naked Bruce," Tony pointed out. "Nobody was looking at you."

"Pinky-swear, people say that brain is the biggest sex organ, but I kinda think that the biggest sex organ might be the Hulk's dick," Deadpool professed with terrible earnestness.

Bruce covered his face with his hands.

"I knew I wasn't the only one who thought that!" Tony crowed.

Bruce wished he had more hands, although he wasn't so far gone that he would have asked Deadpool to lend him his spare one. Still, it was worrying that this idea even occurred to him.

Deadpool bounced on his toes, eyes inevitably drawn to the region of Bruce's (thankfully by now covered) crotch. "Hoo-boy. It's got powers. Mind-control. Every time I see it, it makes me wanna take a ride on it."

Steve made a strangled noise. Natasha's fingers paused over the keyboard. A mighty crash somewhere nearby rattled the walls.

"Aaand there's the reason to say no when a stranger offers to do mysterious experiments on your cancer-ridden body," Tony narrated, while Clint patted Bruce's back and thoughtfully twirled an arrow between his fingers. "A cautionary tale for the kids."

"Aww," Deadpool made an exaggerated 'oh gosh' face, "I'll sell the rights to the movie, but you gotta promise me they'll get Ryan Reynolds to play me. That boy is fit."

Thor's wide shoulders nearly filled in the corridor. He brushed construction dust off of his shoulder and raised the Mjolnir, pointing it (inasmuch as a hammer could be pointed) in Deadpool's direction. "I challenge thee, fiend, to a holmgang, to defend the honor of my shield-brother Bruce."

Faster than anyone could try and stop this obviously horrible idea before it was put into effect, Deadpool had his swords out. "Sure." He tilted his head to the side. "Shut up, White. It's not gonna hurt you."

Steve raised his hands. "Men-"

The rest of his entreaty was lost in the clashing of metal and shattering of the shatterproof glass. The Avengers sans Thor made the simultaneous decision to get the Hell out of dodge and ran – with the exception of Bruce, whom Tony picked up and carried like the damsel in distress he was not, thanks ever so much.

The base that was being demolished behind their backs turned out to be smack dab in the middle of Jackson Heights, which explained how Deadpool had gotten to Bruce without even hanging up. The mercenary had managed to keep up a conversation with minimum input from Bruce for almost half an hour, and didn't even put his phone down for the invasion and wholesale killing part, not so much providing commentary as simply keeping Bruce calm.

That, Bruce thought, was dedication.

"Do you think Thor will kill him?" Steve asked, making an 'ok' sign the direction of the just arriving SHIELD vans.

"It's not like that's hard to do," Natasha non-replied.

"I meant definitively. Thor is a… whatever he is." He still couldn't say 'god'. Not that any of the Avengers were convinced about Thor's actual deity.

Bruce squirmed out of the Iron Man armor's hold and accepted a pair of crocs from a SHIELD agent, ignoring Tony's complaints about 'crime against humanity'. The shoes were green, but needs must. "No, Steve. Thor won't kill him any more than any of us did. That's the thing – sooner or later it really may be just the two of us. And possibly Wolverine."

There was a moment of silence in stead of preemptive condolences.

It was broken, predictably, by Tony. "Yeah, Deadpool at least has a sense of humor. Even if it sucks."

His proclamation was punctuated by the building shuddering and then folding inwards.

Thor walked out of the spreading cloud of dust, Hammer swung over his shoulder. "He fought well, but his heart was black!"

"Eh," Tony deliberated, wiggling his fingers, "like, dark brown at worst."

"Guy is full of shit," Clint agreed.

Bruce looked askance at Natasha, who looked back at him with sympathy, but didn't say anything.

He sighed. "You all are aware that I can fight my own battles, right?"

"You should not be expected to deal with that, Dr Banner," Steve said with a frown.

Bruce huffed. "I should not have to deal with this, Captain. In fact, I thought that if anyone would have to deal with this, it would have been Natasha, and she is more than scary enough to get you to stop."

Sexism was ugly, but it happened. Not everyone had had feminism beaten into their hard head by Peggy Carter. Bruce wondered if Miss Carter had maybe overcompensated, and somehow trained Steve to protect his teammates from potential dates instead. There was that time Steve reminisced about her shooting at him.

He had been smiling.

Either way, Bruce wasn't going to be treated like a child by people who relied on him as their cavalry.

He stood up and faced them. "So, stop. All of you, stop it, okay? If I think I need help refusing someone's advances, I'll ask for it."

He turned on his heel and walked away in the direction of the nearest Underground station. He could make his way to the Tower without a retinue of protectors (he hoped). He had rather had too much of people for one day, but at least no one would try to talk to a man wearing green crocs, a white mad scientist's coat and nothing else. What he really wanted right now was a book that would not try to make him care about anything.

(He got home without trouble and ended up watching YouTube videos of people being awesome until JARVIS shut down his tablet and sent him to bed.)

x

Bonus Round

x

Natasha blinked, and then blinked again, but the writing on the wall didn't change.

Deadpool stuck his hand behind his back and tried to look as innocent as a red-and-black whole-body suit drenched in blood and draped over a very well-proportioned man could, which would have been a negative value even if she hadn't seen the spray can he was now hiding.

The wall – incidentally, the glass wall of the SHIELD Headquarters' lobby – sported writing in neon green:

WW + BB 5EVA

Bruce was hiding his face in his hands and trying to sink into the ground.

Tony took a photo of the graffiti and Instagram'd it with a hashtag 'twoowuw'. "I keep trying to hate him, but it's getting kinda hard."

"Stiff upper lip," Steve encouraged him, because Steve could be a troll in his own right. Oh, and they all liked watching Deadpool annoy people other than them.

Clint sprinted out of the underground garage, taking the stairs by three. "ETA?" he pressed out in between gasping for air.

"Ten," Natasha replied, watching the building, "nine, eight – you need to exercise more if you're out of breath after a skip through the base – three, two-"

"Tell me you've got that motherfucker nailed down by his balls!" roared Fury, striding across the lobby like a bat out of hell, coat flapping behind him.

Steve stood at attention. "The subject was cooperative, sir, so we did not resort to coercive measures."

Behind Cap's back Clint slapped a fiver into Natasha's extended hand.

Fury strode out into the afternoon sun and, to the mild surprise of a part of his audience, didn't burst in flame. Though he did seem quite incensed. "Wilson."

Deadpool saluted – with his left arm, and an extended middle finger touching his brow. "What's with the face, Nick? Did you go through reverse puberty, Michael-Jackson-style?"

Fury shot him in the head. He waited until the body hit the ground with a nauseating crack, and then visibly calmed down. "I've always liked this about you, Wilson. Conversation with you is just so therapeutic."

Deadpool moved. His hand scrabbled against the tarmac. He groaned, lifted himself on one elbow and turned up to face Fury-

Who shot him in the face again.

"Did I give the impression that I care if he's docile like a castrated pug?! If I give you an order to detain somebody, Captain, I mean detain, and not stand around nattering like a bunch of freelance whores-"

Without breaking eye contact with Steve, Fury shot Deadpool in the head again.

Tony flinched. "Nick, you're making me nervous. Could you stop executing that guy for a second?"

Fury turned his head, slowly, drawing the movement out so that the final effect sent chills down Tony's spine. His glare damn-near drilled a hole through Tony's skull. "But then," he explained benevolently, "he'll start talking again, Stark. And, frankly, I can deal with only one of you two fuckers talking today. I've got to shut the other one up. So, tell me – should I stop shooting him?"

Tony gulped. And then pouted. "The magic is lost. You promised to love and honor me forever, Ni-"

He shut up, because suddenly Fury's gun was pointed into his face.

Natasha returned Clint's five dollars to him and addressed the Director over Steve's shoulder: "Please, don't shoot him before he upgrades my Bites."

"And my bow," Clint added. "And quiver. And arrows."

Bruce raised his hand. "And my… pants."

"You were thinking 'axe', weren't you?" Tony stage-whispered.

Steve sighed. "This is not the Lord of the Rings, Tony. Although… never mind."

"You were about to suggest the parallel between Deadpool and Gollum," Clint filled in for him.

Steve shifted, embarrassed. "No, I wasn't…?"

Natasha patted his biceps. And then patted it again, because it felt nice. "It's okay, Steve. You're adjusting."

"Getting a little madder with each passing day," Tony agreed happily.

Deadpool sat up. Fury shot him.

"Cripes," Steve hissed. He gave Fury a frown that accused him of being an America-hating puppy-kicker. "I hate to say it, but I think Tony's right-"

"Oi!" protested the pouting Iron Man.

Bruce sighed. "Director, please stop doing that."

"Ooh," Tony waggled his eyebrows, "are you developing a soft spot, Brucie?"

"It's just… the violence irritates me."

"Fair enough," Clint confirmed quickly, moving backwards to what he judged as safe distance.

Natasha joined him there a moment later. "I concur."

Steve, ever the valiant leader, took a step closer. "Please, Nick. Let us deal with this matter."

Fury paused with his gun cocked. He looked between Steve's imploring gaze and the prone, temporarily dead, splayed body of a murderous maniac in a red skinsuit… and with a quiet grumble gave in. The gun sank lower, and then disappeared in a holster under the signature black leather coat. "Debrief tomorrow at ten."

x

Plus One

x

Bruce walked into the common area carrying a tray full of used dishes, with his phone pressed in between his cheek and shoulder. He was smiling.

"You're smiling," Tony informed him. "Why are you smiling?"

The rest of the Avengers weren't smiling. They had been grumpy all day, because they came to debrief at ten empty-handed, and Fury ordered them on a series of team-building exercises in revenge for them losing their prisoner.

Bruce rolled his eyes at the lounging glum group and turned away to hand-wash the dishes, as if they didn't have a damn dish-washer right there. And he was doing it with the phone still awkwardly wedged between his cheek and shoulder, as if Tony didn't have about a million headsets lying around the place.

"Leave him be," Pepper ordered. "Bruce, it is fantastic to see you smile."

Bruce just shrugged his one free shoulder at her and continued listening to the person on the other end of the line.

"Jarvis, who-"

Pepper's timely jab into his ribs shut Tony up.

"Alright, Wade. Text me the time and place," Bruce said, ignoring the sudden horror-struck stillness behind his back. "But if anyone dies over the course of this endeavor, I reserve the right to change my mind."

He turned off the water. Wiped off his hands. Hung up.

He stared down at the phone like it had personally betrayed him when it made him say those strange, scary words.

Tony turned his desperate eyes around the room and then hid his face in Pepper's stomach. Like a helpless little bird, he whimpered. "Mommy."

Pepper put an arm around his shoulders and tentatively stroked his hair. "There, there, Mr Stark." She looked up at the other Avengers. "What just happened?"

Bruce scratched at the back of his neck and pointedly avoided meeting anyone's eye.

It was Steve, who finally spoke: "Bruce just agreed to a date. Or possibly a marriage proposal."

Thor nodded. "Aye, a hand-fasting."

"A soulbooond," Clint rumbled ominously from his perch on the backrest of the couch.

"Well," Natasha spoke thoughtfully, "if anyone figures out how to definitively kill him, it will be you, Bruce. Since he wants to die pretty badly, it will make for a perfect anniversary gift." She patted Bruce's shoulder and walked off in the direction of the bar.

Tony threw a longing look that way. Sobriety sucked skunk ass. He turned pleading eyes to Pepper.

She was frowning. "If you're so worried, why don't you chaperone?"

Natasha came to a rapid halt and glanced back. The rest of the Avengers stared at Pepper, too.

"That," Tony said, "is a brilliant idea."

Bruce didn't think so. Bruce tried to talk them out of it for the duration of the limousine ride. When they didn't budge he actually looked pretty mad – Bruce mad, not Hulk mad – and Tony knew which one of the two scared him more. Hulk was just a huge teddy-bear who didn't know his own strength.

Bruce, if properly motivated, could be really mean.

"This," Clint muttered, craning his head to look upwards at the fancy portico ceiling, "is a class joint. Surprised he can afford it. Unless he'll pay by not slaughtering the staff-"

Natasha slugged him and slunk past inside the building. "Yastrebyonok, we both know how much people pay for a good mercenary."

"Point," Clint agreed, rubbing his arm.

"This is one of my joints," Tony complained to Steve, who was the only one not fast enough to escape Tony's clutches. "I invited Bruce here before. He always said no. Think he would have come with me if I'd killed Ross like I offered to do from the start-"

"Tony," Steve said exasperatedly, pushing the pouting genius in front of himself like a social equivalent of a battering ram, "we don't kill people."

All four of his teammates that were present in the room looked at him with raised eyebrows.

He sighed and slumped. "Okay, we do kill people, but we don't do premeditated murder."

"Err," Clint scratched the back of his neck, "Cap, you know I'm a sniper, right?"

Natasha simply continued to stare.

"I knew it!" Tony grumbled. "I should have just gone with that car bomb and solved this years ago. Then we would not be here, watching Bruce make the second terminal mistake of his life- Bruce!"

Owing to a long experience of a fugitive evading the Army, and an even longer one of a nerd evading social situations, Bruce had disappeared on them.

They moved inside, by-passing a flustered maitre d', following on their friend's heels past rows of tables – toward to bar, placed front and centre. They were so intent on not being left behind that they didn't pay enough attention to the already dining guests.

Namely the one sitting with his back to the aisle, wearing a suit (as per the dress code of the restaurant) and a messy blond wig.

Deadpool turned out to be unexpectedly fast. He caught Bruce, pulled him down to sit on his knee, and wound his arms around him – all before Bruce realized what was happening. Once Bruce had re-oriented himself, he found that he was seated and secured, with some kind of thingamajig strapped to Deadpool's leg digging into his ass, and Deadpool's chin digging into his shoulder.

Bruce craned his neck to look back and to the right at Deadpool's… well, not face… mask? He raised his eyebrows. "I would not recommend attempting to injure me."

It would have become very painful very quickly. Not for Bruce.

"No hurting the boo!" Deadpool exclaimed. "Them's the breaks!" He threw a – presumably, due to the mask – glare at the rest of the Avengers, who did have the presence of mind to not attack reflexively. "I know you could take it and then dish it out back times million billion trillion, but that's not how it works. You're badass, but the thing is. You know the thing. The 'us' thing. Any 'us' thing. Like, I could never raise a hand to Spidey, 'cause I get shipped with him more than any of my canon gee-effs. Wonder why. Think Spidey's got that face-blindness thingy?"

"Prosopagnosia?" Bruce paraphrased. "I doubt it." Such a disorder would have made the superheroing so much more difficult. But none of the Avengers knew the Spider-Man personally, so it was still possible.

"Let go of my Bruce!" Tony ordered.

"I'm not a thing you can own, Tony," Bruce reminded him.

Deadpool's mask distended, as he – apparently – stuck his tongue out at the defeated Iron Man.

"Uh," Bruce said, "but, would you mind letting me move? Wade?"

"No doing the thing the boo says no to," Deadpool stated in a tone of one repeating something they had had to learn by heart. He released the hold. "It's rule number one."

Bruce relocated himself to the next chair. There was far too little leg space for such an expensive restaurant, but then again, maybe that was an additional service? In any case, he remained sitting with his knee pressed to Deadpool's. Wade's.

"It's a good rule," Bruce said approvingly, for a lack of anything more inspired to say.

Half-way through their dinner, for which they were politely but firmly relocated to the furthest corner of the restaurant from the couple, the four dispirited Avengers simultaneously received a text message from Jane Foster.

It read: 'Mine. You get him back on Tuesday.'

They accepted this, partly because the food was fantastic and partly because Tony wasn't a penny-pincher when it came to buying a round. Or two. Or, like, y'know, ten.

Speaking of ten, ten o'clock found Tony and Clint pleasantly distanced from uncomfortable sobriety, jointly embarking on the road of acceptance.

"Deadpool and Hulk. The whackjob who pisses off everyone and the guy who gets pissed off real easy, with rage issues that register on the Richter's scale." Clint shook his head and stared mournfully into his tall glass of sparkling water. "This is the worst idea in the history of bad ideas."

"I agree," Tony said just as mournfully, also shaking his head. He idly pushed the empty tumbler left and right between his index fingers, listening to the different tones it made sliding over the polished surface of the solid oak. "It's an epically bad idea… and I'm so pissed I haven't come up with it first."

"How can you be so calm about this?" Steve asked Natasha, who was methodically making her way through her second sundae, while he cradled a long since cold espresso.

She shrugged. "You heard Deadpool. No doing what the boo says no to. Gotta say, that already makes him pretty good boyfriend material."

x

In his office in D.C. Nick Fury read the report handed to him by his old friend and then spent a minute admiring Phil Coulson's uncrackable poker face. There was not a twitch.

"Alright." Nick braced himself. He should have known this was coming ever since he had told Phil about this funny little idea for a superhero team he had had in the bath. "I give."

"I told you so," said Phil.

Nick didn't shoot him. Not even a little. Because Nick was a fucking saint.