Chapter Text
Introduction
Peter was a scientist, both in (eventual) career and in spirit. And since he was a scientist, he was prone to notice the world around him. He was naturally curious. He wanted to know things, to figure them out through careful experimentation.
Science, at least the way Peter did it, was safe. Things weren’t up to interpretation, and facts were clearly laid out in peer-reviewed sources. Using such background research, he could employ planning, study, and careful manipulation of variables to isolate and observe a phenomena from a safe distance to minimize risk.
Of course, not everything had to be meticulously planned—Peter regularly dressed in spandex and jumped off buildings following rhino monsters and flying goblins without a clearer directive than “punch them, possibly in the face”—but that just made him savor the scientific method all the more.
Observations
Recently, Peter had begun noticing a weird pattern of behavior in Deadpool.
Deadpool was loud, 6’3” and 250 lbs of muscle, bluster, and words, bubbling to get out. He was headstrong, rushing into situations without thought of his own bodily harm. He (used to) delight in violence, or at least the accompanying paycheck. He made lewd comments. He strutted around New York with the arrogance of someone with Thor-level powers, even though Peter knew all he had was the ability to heal (albeit ridiculously fast). He, outwardly, cared about no one but himself. All in all, he was the picture of dominance and dickishness… except it was all an act. Or, most of it was an act.
Yes, Deadpool could be an annoyance, but he was also surprisingly thoughtful. He was lonely and self-conscious when out of costume. He liked Spiderman, and not just for his ass (although that was an often-mentioned point). He laughed at Spiderman’s jokes and quipped back, remembered the smallest details Peter shared about his life, and looked out for him. Deadpool was a good friend and good person. Mostly.
But that wasn’t what Peter had noticed recently. He noticed that Deadpool, Wade—well, it’s like he… enjoyed being bossed around? By Peter. Or, by Spiderman. He reacted really weird to Spiderman’s instructions. He made jokes that Peter wasn’t sure were jokes. He pushed Spiderman, intentionally annoyed him and initiated shoving fights until Peter snapped and slammed Deadpool into the wall. And then he’d go limp, like putty in Spiderman’s grip.
Peter didn’t quite know what to make of it. So, like the scientist he was, he decided to thumb through the files in his head labelled “Deadpool” to see if he could establish a trend or probable explanation.
He started with the beginning of their… relationship? Friendship? Partner-ship? Not like the gay kind of partners though, obviously. Maybe like cowboys? Cowboys called each other ‘partners’ all the time. Although they also slept together. Probably. They were all alone on the plains, no one but the stars to see… cowboys definitely slept together. So not like cowboys. Like lab partners? Although Peter’s been in many labs before, and there were decidedly fewer maimings, dick jokes, and taco breaks than when he and Deadpool hung out.
The two of them were just crime-fighting partners, or at least they were now. It took them a while to get to the point where Deadpool was no longer the crime-to-be-fought, but even back then there were signs of Deadpool’s odd behavior—beyond the normal weirdness of Deadpool’s behavior.
The first few times they’d run into each other, Deadpool was still a mercenary. Several fights between them ended with Deadpool pinned beneath Peter, and the fight would momentarily drain out of him. But it didn’t seem like he was scheming or trying to lull Peter into a false sense of security. Then he’d break the silence with a crude comment or suggestive wink before fighting out of Peter’s hold. And one time Peter thought the other man was… hard? But it must have been a trick of his imagination because he was promptly socked in the jaw and thrown off by Deadpool, who escaped into the night with a kiss blown back towards Peter’s winded frame.
Then, over the course of a year or so, their interactions bled into a tenuous friendship, forged from three things.
First, they kept ending up on the same side of the fight, and Deadpool was actually a great person to team up with. They fought like they’d trained together for years, and Peter quickly became addicted to the easy synchronicity of fighting with him.
Second, Deadpool got a cushy gig with S.H.I.E.L.D. and stopped murdering people for money. Well, he only murdered people S.H.I.E.L.D. wanted dead, and Peter supposed that was progress.
Finally, and most significantly, Deadpool had started buying Peter (who was—and still is—a broke college student) food. So much food. Peter ate regularly for the first time since he lived with Aunt May. It was almost manipulative, when he really thought about it. Deadpool essentially “Pavloved” Peter into salivating at the other man’s presence, already anticipating his next meal. Like Peter was a dog. A (now) well-fed dog, though, so he supposed he could put up with it.
Once the two saw each other more than quick altercations on rooftops, Peter learned that Deadpool’s sense of humour was 50% sex, 25% violence, and 25% funny animal videos. He learned that the man walked around at a horny 10/10, or at least acted like he did. And that meant that a lot of his sex jokes were about Spiderman since they were together so often.
He joked about Spiderman’s ass, his lips, his “twunkalicious body.” He called Spiderman “baby boy,” said that he deserved a treat for being so good and not killing anyone anymore, and he fucking whimpered when Peter had him pinned during sparring. He told Spiderman he had birthing hips, which was weird, but he also said he’d be ok if it was Spiderman getting him pregnant instead, which Peter didn’t know how to respond to. Because they were all jokes, right? But Peter didn’t have much experience quipping back at your bro making sex jokes about you. So he normally tried to change the subject and thanked fuck he had a mask on so no one (not even himself) had to confront how much he was blushing under his mask.
Peter also learned that Deadpool didn’t often shut the fuck up, but he was a surprisingly good listener. And not only did he listen, but he also listened to Spiderman, from a quick command in the heat of the fight to a firm suggestion to check his behavior, looking back at him for Spiderman’s nod of approval and preening a bit upon receiving it.
Peter learned that Deadpool chewed with his mouth open but only under his mask, sneaking bites of food turned away or when Peter wasn’t looking, and he learned that Deadpool was lonely. And it had just so happened that Peter was lonely too, so their once sporadic night time hangouts became a regular thing.
Deadpool’s comments just got more explicit then. He told Spiderman he should fuck him on a rooftop one night after patrol, that he’d be his dirty little secret. He talked in detail about past sexual encounters, about sex dreams he had, about how he’d apparently been strapped by Death herself? Peter did not want to know about any of that. It actually made him rather angry.
There was a period where Deadpool had gotten really clumsy, always dropping a gun or food or something and bending down to pick it up, slowly looking back at Peter all the while. He’d trip into Peter, grab his biceps and tell him how strong he was.
When he was injured or incapacitated, he’d ask Spiderman to kiss it better, to wrap him up in his webs, or to distract him (cue a lascivious wink). And then he’d relax into Peter’s arms, let out little sounds under his breath when Peter tended to his wounds, and behave so well, so obediently, as Peter guided him to one of Deadpool’s many safe houses.
Deadpool’s most recent schtick was baiting Spiderman to physical violence—or something like that. He’d steal food from Spiderman’s plate. Then he’d look at Peter through the whites of his mask, only his mouth showing but a challenge in his posture. Peter would call him a dick, and Deadpool would just tilt his head to the side and say “What are you going to do about it, baby boy?” Peter had many thoughts about how to deal with Wade, but he normally settled on throwing a balled up wrapper at him and huffily swinging away.
All in all, Peter was… confused. He didn’t know what was going on with Deadpool, but he wanted to find out.
Question & Purpose
Inductive reasoning: “method of drawing conclusions by going from the specific to the general” (Bhandari, 2023)
Peter thought through Deadpool’s behaviors over the last three years, looking for some general trend that could connect his odd behavior—beyond him being, y’know, Deadpool.
He did what he was told to. He liked when Peter shoved him up against a wall. He made jokes about getting fucked (that might not be jokes?). If it were anyone else, Peter would say he was acting like a brat to make someone put him in his place. But it was Deadpool.
I mean, it was Deadpool. Who knows what’s going on in his mind? He could be… was he, like, a bottom, like in a kinky way? Or maybe the word was submissive?
That would be— it would be weird? Interesting? Different? Definitely different.
It’s not that Peter was a kink shamer! As MJ once told him, the only thing you get from kink shaming is left out of hearing fun stories. It was a… scientific curiosity. It’s just that Deadpool was so big and scary and crass that it didn’t really make sense he’d be into—that he’d want that.
Was it all in Peter’s head, just wishful thinking—NOT wishful thinking! It was scientific musings. Yeah, that’s it. But if it was real, how far did it extend, and why was Deadpool so obvious about it?
Peter was curious. He was a scientist, after all, and scientists wanted to know things.
For science.
And as a scientist who’d taken a million science classes in undergrad, each of which had harped on the traditional scientific method,* Peter would figure out this mystery the safe way, with careful experimentation, controlling for all possible extraneous variables until he got to the bottom (Wade’s bottom—no, focus) of things.
For science.
No other reason.
Research
In order to refine his experiment, Peter needed to establish a working knowledge of the subject matter and its associated terminology to determine if his observations pointed to anything real. He knew what BDSM was (a lesson hard-learned after some boys in middle school told him it stood for “Bible Discussion and Study Meeting”), but he didn’t really know what it looked like in practice. Research would hopefully allow him to establish testable metrics based on the principles underlying Deadpool’s behavior.
He started by making a list of notable remarks, drawing themes from them, and searching Google Scholar for related articles.
- BDSM was more about a power exchange than hurting someone/ being hurt. As Larva and Rantala wrote, “Power play… occupies a more central role in BDSM than administration or experience of pain during pain play” (2024). Peter was one of the few people who Deadpool could give power to and know that he could handle it—or that Peter had enough power to take it, with consent, of course. He shivered. This was good. It would help the efficacy of his experimental design, and Peter loved experimental design.
- This exchange of power can be cathartic and/or relieving to all parties due to its effect on the stress system. “Stress is met with a fight or flight response, and an individual who is bound or dominated is not able to fight, and must submit to the will of another. Thus, one can imagine that in this situation, the stress system shuts down” (Larva and Rantala, 2024). And research supported this conclusion, as one study demonstrated “cortisol changes in submissives as a result of a BDSM interaction” (Wuyts and Morrens, 2022). It follows that giving up control could be pleasurable to one who’s always in their own head—or someone who has very rude boxes in his head. Wade was always buzzing with energy, with stress. He’d been fighting since he was a teenager—fighting to survive in an abusive household, fighting to make it through the military, fighting to resist torture and experimentation at the hands of Weapon X, fighting to make his way as a mercenary with enemies in high places, and, most recently, fighting himself to give up murder and violence in favor of being a “good guy,” or at least a better guy. Wade had a lot of stress. He might enjoy giving it up.
- Pain can feel good because it is a reward, not because it’s pleasurable. Peter learned that there are “distinctions between reward and pleasure” (Larva and Rantala, 2024). A reward is a stimulus that motivates a behavior… i.e. Peter telling Deadpool he did a good job, which elicits pleasure due to conditioning. Pleasure, on the other hand, is the good feeling itself. Something can be rewarding without being pleasurable, but pain can be interpreted as pleasure in certain circumstances. As Larva and Rantala wrote, “The explanation [for why pain feels good in SM play but not in real life] may lie in sexual arousal, which influences how pain is sensed.” Just because someone is a masochist does not mean they’ll like all pain. Consensual pain was vital to the masochist’s enjoyment, as it tied back to the exchange of power. In order to properly test Deadpool’s masochism, he’d have to ask him for permission first. This was seemingly obvious, but Peter wondered how it would affect his experimentation. Would he be able to test masochism as a variable, or would he not be able to produce an appropriate environment for pain to be rewarding? Would Deadpool give him permission? He hoped so… for science, of course.
- “Pain thresholds are shown to be higher in submissive individuals and a BDSM interaction may cause pain thresholds to rise in submissives as well” (Wuyts and Morrens, 2022). That made perfect sense, actually. Peter didn’t know anyone with a higher pain threshold than Deadpool, and the man himself had remarked that some of his fucky (technical term) nerves get confused between sensations.
- Finally, there was such a thing as sadomasochism without sex. As Sagarin et. al explained, the practice of sadomasochism extended beyond sexual situations, as it contributed to decreases in stress, altered states of consciousness, and intimacy in and of itself (2015). Peter shouldn’t assume that, if Deadpool were masochistic and/or submissive, it was linked to sex—except there’s no way it didn’t involve sex for him. It was Deadpool.
References
Sagarin, B. J., Lee, E. M., Klement, K. R. (PDF) sadomasochism without sex? exploring the parallels between BDSM and extreme rituals. Journal of Positive Sexuality, Vol. 1. (2015, November). https://www.researchgate.net/publication/301625682_Sadomasochism_without_Sex_Exploring_the_Parallels_between_BDSM_and_Extreme_Rituals
Bhandari, P. (2023, June 22). Inductive reasoning: Types, examples, explanation. Scribbr. https://www.scribbr.com/methodology/inductive-reasoning/#:~:text=Inductive%20reasoning%20is%20a%20method,logic%20or%20bottom%2Dup%20reasoning.
Larva, M. A., & Rantala, M. J. (2024, June). An evolutionary psychological approach toward BDSM interest and behavior. Archives of sexual behavior. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11176219/#:~:text=More%20recently%2C%20Ten%20Brink%20et,a%20result%20of%20sexual%20imprinting.
M;, W. E. (n.d.). The Biology of BDSM: A systematic review. The journal of sexual medicine. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34876387/