A/N: Chapter 2 up! In this one, Ellie runs away from the X-Mansion, and gets a tad more than she originally bargained for. As usual, reviews and favorites and subs are appreciated! Thank you so much to everyone who's read my story so far! It's so much fun to write interactions between Deadpool and Ellie, tbh!
Ellie Phimister sees Wade Wilson again ( though she would have been perfectly happy with just seeing him once in her entire lifetime ), barely four months after he rescues her from the hellish facility that she once called 'home'.
Ellie drifts awake, her mind fuzzy. She is moving, a loud car engine rumbling somewhere behind him, the sound of rain hammering on glass close to her head. She slowly opens her eyes and finds herself looking out of a window at a pewter grey sky, towering buildings blurring as they pass, water tumbling from the sky in sheets. Her hand moves towards the passenger door handle and turns it, not caring what will happen if she jumps from a moving car, just knowing she has to get out.
If she survives this, if she manages to somehow get back to the X-Mansion, Ellie swears up and down – and sideways – that she will never, ever, run away again.
"Don't bother," The driver says, his voice loud enough to be heard over the roar of the engines. "It's locked."
Ellie presses herself against the door, her heart leaping into her throat. Okay. Great. So she's stuck in a car with a potential serial killer who might be taking her somewhere deserted to chop her into itty bitty little pieces. This has to be karma. Maybe she'd been a man-eating titan in her past life.
" – Where are you taking me?" Ellie forces out, her voice stiff, flat, hazel eyes burning twin holes through the back of the headrest.
No reply.
"I asked you a question," She repeats, her voice rising. "Didn't you hear me?"
"If you think I'll answer you, you're as dumb as a box of rocks." The driver snorts disdainfully, keeping his eyes trained on the road. "Ajax will explain once he sees you."
Ellie doesn't point out that he's the one who is as dumb as a box of rocks. He's just answered one of her questions – and at least she now knows who is behind all this. She dimly remembers said man: Blond, with closely cropped hair and long angled eyes; his face, nose and lips narrow, as if someone shaped them with a razor. There had been a female by his side, too - a statuesque brunette, with creamy skin and eyes shot through with gold. She'd had an unfortunate habit of nibbling on matchsticks, which had to be hell on her teeth and gums.
"No." Anger explodes through her, a white-hot lance consuming everything in its path. "No."
There is no way she's heading back to that hell-hole, to be poked at and prodded by more scientists in lab coats. Those monsters laughed at her while she writhed in pain atop an operating table, didn't even bat an eyelash when they disposed of a child half her size . . . The X-Mansion may have blown up a tad too often for her liking, but it was infinitely a better home than that underground place she'd stayed for all her life. Chills vibrate up her spine, and heat steals across her arms, her legs. Agonizing pain sears through her, making Ellie double over. It feels like hot pokers piercing her eyes. Breathing becomes impossible, as though she is back in that glass coffin from hell. Ellie's eyesight hazes, and her muscles clench into hard little knots.
No no NO -
A wave of fire erupts from her torso, racing across the floor and up the walls, turning the inside of the car into an inferno. It engulfs the drive, who screams and thrashes, flailing about in agony as his clothes catch fire. The awful scent of charred flesh fills the air. Ellie barely hears his screams. Her panic grows wings and flies throughout her entire body. The walls are a mass of rolling orange flames, snapping and tearing at her; Ellie can feel the awful heat against her cold skin and cringes back with a cry. She has to get out of there, but there is nowhere to go; wherever she looks, there is fire. The flames roar at her, filling her mind, until all she can see is orange and red.
The driver swerves, loses control of the vehicle and smashed into the neighboring car – a shiny black Cadillac. The force jerks Ellie sideways, and her skull smashes into the window. As the car rocks to a halt, she wrenches the door open and rolls out onto a highway with a pained groan. She'll be picking gravel out of her face for a month.
She hears the impact of metal against metal. Glass cracking and breaking. Screams. The accident only lasts seconds, but the world around Ellie slows to a crawl. Crumpled metal litters the road like scattered tissue paper. A charred body, burned black beyond recognition, lies motionless on the ground with others Ellie doesn't recognize. Lots of limbs lie at unnatural angles. Moans and groans from more victims mean they are alive.
Freezing rain pelts her entire body, and it feels as though someone is repeatedly hosing her down with ice cold water. In a daze, Ellie looks down at herself and doesn't quite manage to suppress her panicked scream. She was sure she'd been wearing clothes – an over-sized Navy pea coat, faded jeans, and broken-in black cowboy boots, to be exact – but nothing remains, not even her threadbare bra, or her graying boy shorts. In fact, she is completely naked, huddling in a tight ball in the pouring rain.
"Y'know, I prefer my steak to be a nice medium rare, not extremely well-done." The man in red spandex pops up in front of her once again, like a recurring cold she can't quite recover from, and Ellie scrambles away on all fours, accidentally giving him a front row view of her bare ( and rather skinny ) body. She knows she should feel shame or embarrassment that a stranger has just seen her buck naked; but really, all she sees is the world hazy at the edges as she tries not to pass out, or worse - puke.
His shrill scream brings her back down to earth. "SOMEONE GET ME SOME BLEACH SO I CAN WASH OUT MY BRAIN – Is this – THIS HAS TO BE SOME KIND OF PAYBACK FOR OGLING SPIDEY'S ASS FOR SEVEN DAYS IN A ROW - " Still gabbling hysterically, he reaches into his black duffel bag – Ellie squints, sees Hello Kitty printed on the side, and promptly decides that she doesn't want to know – and pulls out a bright blue hoodie, practically shoving it into her face.
R00D.
It's not like she has an extra eye growing out of her stomach, or anything. Flushing bright pink, Ellie slips the over-sized shirt over her naked body with a snide roll of her eyes; because something is better than nothing – even if that something consists of neon blue fabric, saucer-like eyes and rainbow stripes. That's a disturbing combination, but Ellie doesn't dwell on it. Instead she holds out her hand, and quite politely – considering all that she's had to go through today – asks for his phone. It's a good thing her 'Mentor' insisted she have his number memorized.
"Colossus?" Ellie cuts off him off mid-lecture, holding the phone away from her ear in case he decides to shout. "I, um, might need an evac. Stat. I'm stuck with some rotten tomato -"
The man chooses now of all times to pipe up indignantly, and Ellie shoves a finger in her ear to block out his incessant yelling. "HEY! For your information, red helps to hide the bloodstains -"
" – Make that an over-sized ladybug, and I think I've just caused a major traffic jam –"
He assures her that he's on his way, and hangs up before he's even finished speaking. Thankfully – or not so thankfully, depending on how one looks at it – the red-clad man stays with her as she perches on the railing of the highway to wait, chattering cheerfully ( some of it directed at her, some of it at the man who lies at his feet, more than scared shitless ) as he interrogates a survivor. Ellie averts her eyes when he skewers said survivor with his swords.
When she gets home, having survived Colossus' lecture on the way back, Logan, rather loudly, tells her in a voice that isn't so much a remark as a growl, that he can 'smell the damn Merc all over her'. Unsurprising, considering the fact that he's given her his hoodie. But Ellie mentions none of that, merely nods, and heads to the bathroom for a hot shower. That day, Ellie learns that the over-sized ladybug is called Deadpool.