***GWEN***
German-language 80s rap continues blasting as Tony runs into the building again, his suit's feet clanking with every step on the tile floor. Deadpool scats along with the song as he follows us - I doubt he knows the actual words, but he's doing a game job of pretending otherwise.
"Where are we going?" Tadashi asks.
"To Norman Osborn," I say. "Right, Tony?"
"Right," Tony says tersely.
"Something wrong with your voice?" asks Natasha. She must not have witnessed the transformation as it happened. Judging from the looks on Tadashi's and Hiro's faces, the same goes for them.
Clearing his throat, Tony says, "I aged. Like a fine wine. Unfortunately, now I'm thinking I'm too old for you."
"What in the ass?" Deadpool laughs. "You old perv. Glad to have you back."
"You got old?" Hiro asks. "How? Did Strange's spell wear off or something?"
"It would've done so anyway on its own soon enough," says Deadpool. "You guys weren't around to see my glamour fail. But fail it did, and epically so, I might add."
"You guys don't wanna see the results," I say to everyone else - I was the only one of us who was there when Deadpool showed his diseased skin at him Snoqualmie hotel room. The others are so much better off not knowing.
"Can we see your new face?" Hiro asks. "Just out of curiosity, you know. I wanna see if you really do look like Robert Downey, Jr."
Tony's mask slides up for a moment, just long enough for Hiro and everyone else to see his properly-aged face for the first time. "Petey looks like Andrew Garfield," he says. "Why shouldn't I look like RDJ? And hey, Nat, since you're destined to grow up to be Scarlett Johansson..." He winks once before masking up again.
"Deadpool's right," Natasha says, shaking her head in exasperation. "You are an old perv. I mean, what in the ass?" She copies Deadpool's strange swear in a near-perfect imitation of his voice.
"I think you mean 'What What (In The Butt),'" Deadpool says, barely able to stifle his snickering. "But that's just me."
"All right, we get it," Ultron gripes. "We're all old pervs here. Now can we move on? I'd kinda like to meet this man who mass-produced an army of me. Without my permission, I might add."
"Need we remind you that you attempted to destroy the world without anyone's permission?" Tony asks.
"Definitely not, creator," Ultron snarks. "I live with my sins every day, because I actually try to atone for them."
"Good for you, buddy," Tony says. "Now hush. We're getting pretty dangerously close to Norman Osborn."
I lean forward and hear, on the other side of a partially-ajar double door, two male voices. One is Norman's, I think. The other, louder, more distinctive voice belongs to Fury. "...realize you're gonna get recast too, even if you keep insisting on allying with the studio?" he asks. "Same with Harry. You may have thought you were gonna finally eliminate Spider-Man and prevent him from blowing your secrets wide open, but when you initiate this kind of metaphorical deal with the devil...it's a fire sale. Everything must go."
"Don't think of it as ending Spider-Man," Norman says. "More as a rebirth. But I'm a scientist, not a philosopher. I'm not one to stop my experiment purely on moral grounds. Hell...I'd say it's working like a charm."
"Did he say he's working for the studio?" Thor whispers.
"As in Marvel Films?" asks Natasha.
What I like to call "Marvel's Folly," says Ricky. The whole reason why I'm writing this - a critique on the utter scrap-metalling of my favorite movie series.
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Deadpool Syndrome - Spider Soulmates
FanficPeter Parker's no longer the only one who's been bitten by a genetically-engineered spider. Norman Osborn has improved his formula and used not only himself, but also Harry and Gwen, as guinea pigs. And they're far from the last test subjects Norman...
