Hello dear readers! Welcome back! :) And if you're new, welcome! This is a sequel so if you've found this one first you might want to go read the first one before continuing with this story, but no pressure!
Here's a Full Summary:
The future isn't set...
Sequel to 'Past, Present, Future' and post-'Deadpool 2'! Nina Nova's life is busy: she's working full-time as a teacher, as well as a superhero with two different teams. And not to mention she's still grappling with learning so much about her future, things she isn't supposed to know yet - let alone living in the same house as her future husband, who she's got mixed feelings about so far.
And as if that wasn't enough - during a mission that takes a wrong turn, Nina is forced to open the menacing Dark Dimension, only this time she may not be able to fully close it...
But the future isn't set, and things can change...
Inspired by Pat Benatar's song 'We Belong' which played during the end credits of 'Deadpool 2' (great song!) An original story within the X-Men movie universe!
Also, just wanted to give a language warning, cause there will be some swearing here (you know how Wade and Nathan are... Nina's keeping track for her swear jar ;) She loves 'Once Upon a Deadpool', less foul language, less violence, it's Nina's kind of movie! (I just saw it the other day, so I'm feeling prepared to post the sequel!)
Same as always - I don't own these characters, only my own and her storyline :) thanks and I hope you enjoy!
1.
The Present
Chapter Theme Song: Take On Me - a-ha
"Guys, I fucked up."
A tall, red and black suit appearing in the library doorway signaled that Wade had returned from his time-travel escapade.
"Where the hell have you been?!" demanded Ellie. "It's been hours. I thought you were just going to go back and change one thing."
"Yeah I was, and I did, but then I was kinda on a roll and..." Instead of continuing, Wade held up the warped metal mess in his hand, the small hand-held machine smoking slightly. The light blinked a few times and then died.
Ellie and Yukio's jaws fell open. "Is that Cable's time-travel device?" Yukio was the first to speak.
"It was..." Ellie stared in horror at the utterly destroyed device. "What the fuck did you do to it?! How far back in time did you go?"
"Well, long story short - oh, speaking of short..."
Domino and Nina entered the library then, breaking their conversation when they saw the others.
"Why do I get the feeling we're missing out on something here?" Domino asked of the guilty stares from the other three.
"What happened?" asked Nina. "You all look slightly alarmed."
"Douchepool here took Cable's time-travel device for a spin and totally fucked it up," Ellie explained not-so-lightly.
There was a stunned silence.
"What's 'totally fucked up'?" asked Domino. Ellie held up the device. Domino cringed.
A hand flew to Nina's mouth. "That's it?"
"Uh huh."
"That's the device?"
"Hard to believe, right?"
"Wade, what did you do?!" she cried.
"I went back and saved Vanessa from dying, duh! And a few other things..."
"Alright, that's understandable. But what other things?"
"Other things."
"You can't just go and do things in the past, that'll change the present and future!"
"Well, we all seem to still be intact, so that's a good sign," remarked Domino.
"I thought Nathan used up his last charge," Nina recalled. "That it didn't work anymore."
"Yeah..." Ellie slowly raised a hand. "We fixed it."
"You fixed it?"
Ellie nodded while Yukio waved.
"How?"
"We recharged it. It took a long time-"
"I'll say!"
"Hey, we helped you!" Ellie snapped at Wade. Then she turned back to Nina and Domino. "And a lot of power, but it worked, I guess."
"Do you think you could do it again?"
"We can try, but this thing is beyond fried. Last time it was just a matter of recharging it, but this needs to be majorly fixed. It's probably gonna need some, if not all, new parts, and we don't even know what those would be, let alone where to get them and how to rebuild it."
"I can think of someone who does," mumbled Domino. "The man himself."
There was another silence. No one wanted to be the one to break the news to Cable that he wouldn't be returning to his family anytime soon. He was already bitter enough about it.
"Maybe he brought the instruction manual with him from the future," Domino added half-jokingly.
"Maybe he'll know how to fix it," agreed Yukio, warming to the idea and trying to sound positive.
"Who's going to ask him? And who's going to tell him why?"
There were no volunteers.
"I vote Douchepool," said Ellie.
"Shorty, you ask him," Wade decided.
"No!"
"You gotta!"
"Why me?! Why should I go when it's your fault?""
"Cause your his wife, genius!"
"Not yet!" Must she constantly remind everyone - including Nathan - of that?
"He's not going to get mad at you."
"You don't know that!"
"Uh, excuse me, have you seen the way he looks at you compared to how he looks at any of us? The way he acts around you? Don't even get me started on that!"
Nina was still skeptical. She didn't want to be the bearer of the bad news. "Why doesn't Domino go, you're lucky."
"Hmm, sorry, but I'm with Wade on this one. You're the lucky one this time, girlfriend."
That was how, minutes later, she found herself standing outside Nathan's room, hesitating to knock. She could only imagine how enraged Nathan was going to be when he found out, with her delivering the news or not.
She didn't have to knock, it turned out, for the door opened suddenly, startling both her and Nathan, who jumped a little when he saw her there, her fist raised preparing to knock.
He was wearing tight workout clothes, and had a towel draped over his shoulder, obviously on his way to the training gym. "Nina."
"Hi," she squeaked.
"Can I help you?" he asked when she didn't say anything further.
"Uh, yeah, yeah, about that..." She flashed, what she hoped was, a winning smile. "We have a bit of a situation..." How was she ever going to explain this?
"Is everything alright?" he pressed gently. He really did act different around her.
"Oh yeah - well, no, that's a lie..."
"Are you okay?" Concern now laced his words.
"Yeah, no, I'm fine."
"Oh, good. I'm glad. By the way, you haven't seen my travel device anywhere have you? That's not exactly something I want to misplace. Don't want one of these kids getting their hands on it not knowing what it does."
"I'm glad you asked, funny you should bring that up..." Cringing, she drew her hands from behind her back to reveal the mess that was now the device. It was pretty self-explanatory.
"Did you find it like this?" he finally asked after a painful, dragging silence.
"Yeah, I guess you could say that."
Nathan took it from her hand. "What happened?"
"Well, I couldn't tell you, to be honest-"
His head then snapped up to look at her with a flash of realization. "Oh, that little-"
The first week following X-Force stopping Russell and Nathan saving Wade made two things very clear for Nina:
One, it was going to be varying degrees of awkward having Nathan now living at the mansion.
And Two, he was, honestly, a bit of a jerk.
He avoided everyone, mostly remaining shut away in his room. This was probably related to not wanting to change this time too much with his knowledge of the future, but he was going to be stuck here until they fixed his time-travel device, and no one knew how long that would take, so he couldn't hide away forever. Might as well try and make the best of it, right? At least that's what Nina thought. Of course, no one here could really understand what he was going through.
Whenever he was around others he kept to himself and wasn't very open or friendly, shutting people down when they tried to talk to him.
"Who are you?" She had witnessed Jean and Scott meeting Nathan.
Their future son just smiled and nodded. "Yeah, this'll be good."
At least Nina knew that in the future there wouldn't be any awkward 'meet the parents' as she already knew them. And in her case, she didn't have any for him to meet.
"Nathan, I like that name," she caught Jean tell Scott once Nathan had left the young couple. She wondered what they would think about their son marrying her.
She had known from the beginning that it wasn't going to be easy. She had originally considered calling him 'Mr. Summers' - what do you call your future husband who you're not supposed to have met yet but are obviously very close to in the future? - but seeing as Scott was still around that wouldn't be too smart. Nathan had already met his wife so best keep the parents out of it for now. Talk about a walking, talking spoiler alert!
And it wasn't going to be easy for either of them - if they happened to be in the same room together, she had caught him, maybe more often than he noticed, staring at her, almost longingly. She knew and understood that it would be difficult for him to keep his distance, especially since he had just lost her and their daughter.
Their daughter. She still couldn't wrap her head around this.
No, it wasn't going to be easy, but he wasn't exactly making it any easier. Most everyone at the mansion was rather intimidated by him - she herself included.
It also didn't help that Wade seemed to have selected them as his new OTP - she had to ask Domino what that stood for. His comments such as 'You two are going to make such beautiful babies! Even though I didn't end up dying I still expect you to name one after me!' and 'You get into bed with this guy!' with a wink and nudge to her, especially after seeing Nathan in action during training, didn't help the situation at all. Especially since she didn't see it at all - she didn't want to be too quick to judge, as first impressions weren't everything, but so far she was, in all honesty, having some trouble seeing what attracted her future self to this guy so much. So much so that she would choose to leave the mansion, marry him, and start a family with him, completely change her life. That was no small matter, especially not to her, she who never believed it was going to happen, and had been content with that. Things obviously changed in the future, and majorly.
She had been here at the mansion with the X-Men, teaching the students and going on missions, for so long, this was her home and they were her family. This was her life, and she had expected it to stay this way - she had wanted it to. She wasn't going anywhere, and she was okay with that. That was, until a guy called Nathan Summers came into her life and quite literally changed it forever.
And, though it had luckily all been prevented now, his reason for being here in the first place was still on her mind: that he would travel through time in order to kill the child who had originally grown up to become she and Hope's murderer. This, in all honesty, frightened her a little, that he would go to such an extreme for them. Of course, she was glad of his devotion and love for them, and his protectiveness, but also found it striking and perhaps a little intimidating. That and the fact that he obviously felt so guilty for it happening, even though it didn't happen anymore. And now, of course, he was even more protective of her to ensure that nothing else came remotely close to happening that would mess with that future.
A future he wasn't getting back to anytime soon. A future which she was uncertain about.
And so it begins! ;) I'm sorry if the timelines start to get confusing, I'll try and keep it as clear as possible - I'm a little confused myself to be honest, haha! I was thinking this could be the revised time they fixed in Days of Future Past, but then Jean and Scott wouldn't be teenagers, but let just go with that for simplicity's sake ;) Consider this the transition stage for both casts of characters! Thank you so much for reading and I hope you enjoyed! Get ready for lots of awkwardness... ;) and if you were disappointed by the lack of romance in the last one (I was!) then fear not for this one will be much more romantic! I just felt before it was too soon. Thanks!
