Deadpool Makes A Friend

Disclaimer: I own nothing having to do with the character, storylines, or components of Deadpool, including versions found in comic books, various movie franchises, etc. All rights belong to their respective owners. I own only the original elements of this story, which I make no money from writing or publishing.


Hero Academy: Mission To New York

After falling for what seemed like forever, Ash landed on Iron Man's back with a bone-rattling thud, but the impact was still far better than it would have been if she had landed on the street below. After making sure she was secure - a bit of a process involving some cleverly-installed handles, a brace, and some backup thrusters for the additional weight - Tony Stark's voice sounded in her ear. He was transmitting through the earpiece on a frequency specially set up for situations like this, and only accessible for the two of them.

"What's up, Ash? Why'd you need the rescue?"

"I'll tell you about it later," she hedged, confident that the microphone in the earpiece's cord was powerful enough to pick up her voice, even despite the wind. "Is there any chance you could fly around for a few minutes before dropping me at my apartment?"

The plan made sense to her. After all, it wouldn't be good if Deadpool had gone to the rail and seen Iron Man fly away with her, then saw the same hero make his way to her apartment. Assuming the mercenary cared long enough to put the pieces together, even he couldn't fail to understand what was going on. Actually, it wouldn't be a terrible idea to just suck it up and find a new place…

This realization, Ash's plan, and all other thoughts faded from Ash's mind as Tony responded in the negative. "Sorry, kid, I can't do that. You know the rules: one rescue, one visit to the Tower to see Pepper. You're in for the long haul." His tone grew darker, menacing. "You had better brace yourself. She's heard stories about all the dangerous stuff you've been doing and she's had a lecture lined up for weeks." He hissed in sympathy. "It's not gonna be pretty."

Sure enough, two hours later, Ash found herself still sitting at the large, varnished-wood table in Tony and Pepper's living space in the Tower. Pepper's lecture had been going on for roughly an hour and forty-five minutes and Ash had given in to the rolling waves of guilt and shame that the redhead had been throwing down. Dimly, she heard Pepper ask a question and - without picking her head up from her hands - repeated for the sixth time, "I know, Pepper. You're right; I need to be more careful."

Obviously recognizing the battle-weary tone even from where he sat designing some technology with Jarvis, Tony chuckled. Pepper glared at him as she continued in the same vein she had been speaking on for most of the lecture. "I know you have powers now, and that's a difficult thing to get used to. Trust me, I was there with Tony and your adjustment time has been a thousand times better than his was-"

Still sitting across the room, Tony said in offended tones, "Hey! You're forgetting: how many times during my 'adjustment time' did I save your life?"

Raising her voice only slightly, Pepper kept talking. "-but you're eventually going to come across some psychopathic whackjob who doesn't have any feelings for you to exploit."

Ash shifted guiltily in her chair. Pepper's warning was uncomfortably close to what had happened that night and she needed to ask some questions. Turning in her chair, she looked over at Tony. "Speaking of, how well do you know-"

Tony snorted. "Nice try, kid. Pep's not even close to being done yet."

Tucking a loose strand of strawberry hair behind her ear, Pepper glared over at Tony. "No, 'Pep' is pretty much done… with you, at least. Tony and I are going to have a conversation later tonight, one that he will not enjoy. What did you want to ask, Ash?"

Trying to ignore Tony, groaning over the news of his impending lecture from Pepper, Ash cleared her throat. "Well, um, I wanted to ask - how well do you guys know Deadpool?"

To his credit, Tony instantly stopped complaining and grew serious. Gaze intense on Ash, he asked, "Why do you ask? Because he only agreed to come here when he knew you had been injured and he wanted to check up you. We all thought you were the one who knew him best out of any of us."

Ash didn't let her gaze waver and Tony eventually decided to give more information. "Well, as a general rule, no one knows him very well. At least, none of us do. There are some stories about a bartender, an older blind lady, and some really weird stuff about him and Spider-Man, but other than that, no one knows much about the guy, other than the basics."

"The basics?" she repeated, unsure of what the billionaire hero was referring to.

"Yeah, you know," he said with a shrug. "The stuff you can tell from spending just a couple of minutes with the guy. Basically, 'unstable' is an understatement." Tony's eyes sharpened. "Why, was he there tonight? Is that why you needed a rescue?"

Ash gestured widely, trying to cut off the tirade she knew was coming. "First off, I needed a quick escape. It was not a rescue. And secondly, I know Wade Wilson, it's Deadpool I don't know enough about. Even then, I really only need to know if he has a history of lying. Or exaggerating. Stretching the truth in any way, basically."

Neither Tony nor Pepper made any attempt to answer, but Jarvis's clipped tones cut in. "Miss Akerstrom, Deadpool has many faults, but he is never less than one hundred percent honest. Some even say that he is, perhaps, too honest."

Ash laughed awkwardly. She could believe that. "At least that aspect of his personality is the same," she mused even as her brain whirred through the implications of this. "Does he send you guys a text every time he sees a dog that he says looks like you?"

Ignoring both her question and her attempt at levity, Pepper gently touched Ash's hand. "Ash, what's going on? Has he been bothering you?"

Giving the woman an uncomfortable smile, Ash drew her hand out from under Pepper's. Her powers increased so much more with touch that she often received too much information from the other person. "No, not really. Tonight is the first night I've seen him since all of this," she gestured down at her poorly-suited body, "happened."

"Well, there had to be a reason you asked," Tony deduced. "It almost sounded like you were thinking - hoping, actually - that he was lying about something. So what was it?"

"I- He- Okay, so he said something about how he's been following me for three months. I was just kind of hoping that was an exaggeration or - best case scenario - an outright lie." Ash hadn't glanced up from the table during this confession, but the lack of response on everyone's part spoke volumes about what they were thinking.

Finally, the deafening silence was broken by a long, low whistle from Tony. "Wow. He's sure got a hard-on where you're concerned."

"Let's hope not," Ash responded dryly.

Tony chuckled, but Pepper looked deadly serious as she leaned forward. "What are you going to do about this? I mean, I'm assuming you don't want him to find out about all of this. I understand the situation and why you reacted to all of this the way that you did, but I wouldn't be surprised if Deadpool found out and was even more hurt that you didn't confide in him from the beginning."

"I definitely don't want that," Ash agreed, tipping her head back to stare at the ceiling. "I mean, I tried to tell him about the injection before everything went sideways, but he didn't want to listen to me. Then, he was so upset because he thought I was rejecting him that I never got the chance to explain. All of this assuming that I didn't fall over and die on the spot from whatever this injection is still trying to do." She sighed, allowing her eyelid to flutter closed. "I guess I just- I just don't know what to do."

"Might I offer a suggestion?" Jarvis asked politely, but went on without waiting for an answer. "While Master Pool certainly is not unintelligent, he is not the most observant. Perhaps if you were to change the suit you wear while you patrol, it would be enough to escape his notice, at least until a more permanent solution were to be found."

Tony snapped his fingers, pointing at Ash in the same gesture. "That's a great plan. You figure out what you need, Jarvis and I will make it work."

Ash shifted uncomfortably. "I don't know if that's quite feasible…"

She didn't want to bring money into the conversation, especially when two of the others involved were a billionaire and a high-paid executive. However, Ash's funds were low and there were no signs of financial improvement. It had been weeks since she had brought in a skip, partially because of all of the crime fighting she was doing, but also because it was shockingly difficult to bring someone in when you could feel exactly how regretful they were for their actions. In fact, the last skip she had picked up had been a young girl hiding with her mother. Their combined emotions had almost been too much for Ash. She had only barely dropped the girl off at the police station when she was violently ill.

The point was, experimental suits and such were great, but they didn't come cheap. At the current point in Ash's life, 'cheap' was about all she could afford, so it seemed best to politely reject Tony's offer and continue with her current methods. Although, she reflected, it might be better to lay low for a bit, at least until Deadpool is done being weird about my identity and everything.

Pepper's 'business' voice cut through Ash's introspection. "Money, of course, is a matter of no importance." Ash gaped at the woman's ability to see and put a stop to all of her subtext and avoidance. In a tone that was more logical and conciliatory, she said, "It would actually be a good planning exercise, testing our ability to put technology into a suit that isn't being built for Tony."

"Pepper…" Ash groaned, knowing that it was charity, but finding it hard to fight that the woman had made several good points.

"Ash, it would really give us all a peace of mind to know that you're safe out there, being protected by something other than eight layers of sweatshirt material and powers that you barely know how to use."

"I- But- Fine," she agreed, deciding to give in semi-gracefully while she still had the option. "Where do we start with-"

"Ash, which of these do you like the most?"

The woman in question turned to face Tony, standing at a holographic display with about six different design ideas hovering randomly around the interface. "Did you already have these planned?" Ash asked, hurrying over before he decided to choose one for her.

"Of course not," he denied, sounding offended. "Jarvis knows your powers, I know tech, and we whipped up these designs based on the features you need. What, did you expect it to take hours?"

"Hours? I was thinking more like days."

"Days?" Tony echoed, sounding horrified.

"I should have expected something like this, so I apologize," Ash admitted. "But I don't know if you and Jarvis actually know what I need any better than I do, so shouldn't I be the one dictating what features are included?"

Tony laughed. "Kid, you know what you do, but I know the criminals in this city. I know what you're up against, and as the one who helps me patch up my suits after patrols, Jarvis does too."

"Well, I should at least have some input."

"Naturally. What do you want to decide?"

"Um…" Ash drew slowly, having not really considered what she wanted to choose for her suit. "Color scheme?"

"Nuh-uh. I've already picked your colors: they'll be the same as mine. Having your suit painted up like Iron Man's and stamped with the Stark Industries production mark, you'll go onto the streets with some protection already. If people know you're affiliated with me, they'll be less likely to mess with you."

"No, not happening. I'm not walking around in a suit that is made to look like Iron Man's." Tony looked somewhat offended and Ash grinned. "At best, people will think I'm some crazy Iron Man fanboy and not take me seriously. Worst case: they'll think I am you and try to attack me."

Tony now definitely looked offended, but Pepper let out a somewhat-restrained giggle. "Possible."

Turning his disgusted expression on her, too, Tony said, "I don't have nearly as many enemies as you two seem to think, but I don't expect you to walk around in a copycat Iron Man suit." His face turned devious. "In fact, I don't expect you to walk at all…"


Two days and several failed attempts at flight later, Ash had managed to talk Tony down from adding thrusters to her suit. Even he had to admit that she seemed to do best while her feet were solidly on the ground.

She had been staying at Avengers Tower ever since the run-in with Deadpool, and she was grateful for the opportunity to stay off the radar. Of course, the fact that it put her in close quarters with both Jarvis and Tony Stark meant that Ash was spending quite a bit of her time doing a variety of tests designed to help narrow down the criteria for her suit. Some of them were basic physical challenges while others were more about testing her abilities. As time went on, there were more of the second kind.

After yet another of these tests, Ash flopped down on a conveniently-placed chair and glared at the whole of the room. It was empty, as Tony was in the lab trying to work out a bug in a potential suit, but Jarvis was always nearby "Okay, Jarvis, that's enough. What's really going on?"

"I cannot pretend to know what you mean, Miss Akerstrom."

"You shouldn't be able to lie to me: you're a robot!"

"I am an intelligence system."

"It's still rude to lie," Ash huffed. "I'm not stupid, and I've noticed that you're doing more tests on the strength of my 'powers' and I want to know why. Are the side effects of the gel starting to fade or something?"

"I'm afraid the situation is quite the opposite, Miss Akerstrom. It seems that, as time goes on, the abilities brought about by introducing the gel are only becoming stronger."

Ash nodded slowly, trying to understand what he was telling her. "And why would that be?"

"Our best hypothesis is that there was a type of dormant mutation in your genes that was awakened by the gel. There seems to be little chance to stop the strengthening unless we understand what it is caused by. That is why we have been watching you perform different persuasion tasks of varying levels. We need to know how much of your abilities are caused by the gel and how much are from your genes."

"But why would that be a bad thing? Surely having stronger powers would only be considered a positive."

"To some extent, yes. The more powerful you are, the easier it will be for you to influence others and the better you will be able to do what you see as your part for society. However, there are some definite drawbacks as well. As I'm sure you've already noticed, your abilities increase with touch."

Thinking back to the young female skip and Pepper, Ash nodded her agreement, forgetting that Jarvis had no way to see the motion (that she was aware of). He continued regardless. "That was not an original side effect, was it?" She shook her head. "We assumed not. It seems that, eventually, it will be as uncomfortable for you to be around people as it currently is for you to touch them."

The thought made a chill run up Ash's spine. "Are there any people with similar levels of power to what mine might be at peak level?"

"There is one: a member of the X-Men named Rogue. She doesn't deal with emotions, but she is a siphon for powers and abilities, most often transmitted through physical contact. Rogue also can absorb personality traits, memories, and even physical characteristics, all by touching others. She rarely has contact with people due to this issue. In her case, the use of her powers could be avoided by not having any physical contact with people, but as you pick up emotions without contact even without being at the height of your powers..."

It sounded fairly close to hell, especially when put in context of Ash and her focus on emotions. Would I even be able to have my own emotions anymore, or would I just be a vessel holding other people's feelings? "I- I really don't want that," she said, unable to keep her voice from shaking. "What's the worst-case scenario?"

Ash wasn't certain she wanted to know the answer to the question, but the fact that Jarvis took so long to respond made her dread it even more. "In your specific case, the major danger is you being driven insane by the cacophony of emotions to which you are exposed."

She felt herself blanche at his statement, despite the semi-comforting tone with which it had been delivered. Jarvis did hurry to add, "Rest assured, Miss Akerstrom, we are doing all that we can to develop a method to reverse all of this. If we can neutralize the injection, your system will stop sensing a threat and your abilities should cease growth, and perhaps disappear altogether."

"Is that even possible?" she asked in a whisper. "Is there any real chance I'll go back to being normal?"

"There is always a chance, Ashton."

It was the first time Jarvis had ever addressed her with anything other than a proper title and it was enough to shake Ash back to herself. She stood quickly and headed for Tony's lab. "I have to do something," she said, answering Jarvis's unasked question. "If I sit around waiting to go crazy, I'll probably just speed up the process."


"Okay, Ash," Tony coached. "Just make it through the course and we'll be able to start finalizing the suit. This is what the last week has been about."

Ash took a deep breath and focused all of her attention on the course spread around the room. This was the Avengers's training area, and it had proven to be more of a challenge than she ever would have expected. Tony had insisted, however, that she had to make one full run of the track through the mock city before he would start production on a suit. "After all," he had said, "It doesn't make sense to build a suit that you can't move in."

It had been a fair point, and since the conversation with Jarvis, Ash had become suddenly unafraid. Before, she had always treated her body as something easily breakable - with the exception of the time she had been beaten by that group - but now that she knew the clock was very definitely ticking, she had lost all fear. If nothing else, she needed to get out on the street in this suit to do some good before she lost the ability to help anyone - even herself.

"And… Go!" Tony said sharply. High above them, a projection on the wall began to record her time down to the millisecond, but Ash was only dimly aware of this. She was far too busy attacking the course. Ash did jump slightly when Shoot To Thrill by AC/DC started playing, but she just rolled her eyes. It was Tony's personal 'get psyched' song, and he played it at least once every training session they had.

The straight sprint was first, an easy stretch to start. Ash kept herself in fairly good shape, so the real challenge was at the end, when she had to take a sharp turn to the right. There was a temptingly-placed light pole that she had at first tried to grip and swing herself around to keep her momentum, but Tony had shut that down immediately. "There's no benefit to it. You would literally be faster if you slowed down to a light jog and turned the corner."

"There's no way that's true," Ash had panted. "It helps me turn the corner faster."

"Actually, he's right," Captain Rogers had said, unexpectedly joining them in training. "All of our gloves have special gripping material on them - well, the ones of us who don't wear metal gloves." This was said with a joking glare at Tony. "But with that material, if you don't grip hard enough, your hand will slip off. If you grip too hard, the material will stick slightly and slow you down even more."

Together, the two had shown her an alternative method, and she used it now, carefully planting a foot on the bottom of the pole so she could propel herself off and to the right. Ash was still at a full sprint as she moved down the replica street to the right. The next obstacle was a line of cars parked in front of a fairly tall wall - almost too easy to conquer with the technology packed into her suit.

With a simple command, Ash activated the low-powered motion thrusters in her boots. They could barely be classified as thrusters since they had no feasible ability to lift her off the ground, but they were enough to amplify her movements. The result was a sort of superpowered parkour, and after bounding onto the hood of a car, she leapt easily over the rest of the barrier and continued her mad sprint toward the building that marked the rest of her path.

Once she was standing at the foot of the building, she scanned the front of it, paying special attention to the windows. There! She thought triumphantly. On the third level, one window was open just a few inches. She was a tad nervous as she began scaling the exterior - especially as she had only needed to enter a second-story window in other runs - but she was confident she could accomplish the task.

"You know Spider-Man?" Tony had asked as they discussed the feasibility of climbing straight up the side of a building with no grip points.

"Yes," she had responded tonelessly. "I know far more than I like to admit about Spider-Man."

Tony studied her in surprise. "Huh. I'll have to tell him he's got a fan. Anyway, the grip on the gloves and the toes of your boots mimics Spider-Man's ability to cling to any surface. It's not nearly as powerful, especially since it's on a wearable surface instead of your skin, but it'll be enough to help you get out of any-" he snorted and Ash rolled her eyes before he even finished with, "-sticky situations."

Trying to ignore the connection to the superhero she disliked so much, Ash hover-leapt from the ground, catching herself as far up the building as she could reach before beginning to climb. Only a matter of seconds passed while she shuffled up the exterior wall, cranked the window back, and eased lightly into the darkened room. This was where the most difficult - but also the most crucial - part of the test would take place.

The space was set up like someone's living room, complete with furniture and pictures. Of course, Ash had only moments to study her surroundings before one of Tony's training dummies was coming toward her. Built to mimic the attack patterns and reaction times of the average citizen, these dummies weren't what Ash had been expecting when she first experienced them. In fact, they had thrown her off badly enough to beat her a few times. There was nothing more humbling than being taken down by a heavily-padded robot, she had found out.

Fortunately, the members of the Avengers had set aside one embarrassing, exhausting day to give her as much training as possible in hand-to-hand combat. Tony had taught her about analyzing fighting patterns, Natasha Romanoff and Captain Rogers had demonstrated several of their favorite methods of neutralizing a threat (Black Widow's moves tended to be a bit more violent than the Captain's), and Hawkeye had helped her learn how to take a fall without hurting herself or losing any time - surprisingly, a skill he had learned working in a circus as a young man. Thor was out of town for the lesson and Doctor Banner just insisted that there was nothing he could teach her, though he did contribute some interesting ideas on how to pad her suit to avoid nerve damage from hits.

As she had been trained, Ash bounced slightly on the balls of her feet, ready for the dummy's attempted jabs. She dodged those easily, not bothering to waste energy in blocking the punches. While she dodged, Ash waited for an opening. There was always an opening, sooner or later. When she spotted an unguarded section of ribcage, Ash dove at it, taking the dummy down in a tackle. On the floor, their difference in height mattered far less and Ash attacked in a series of punches and elbow jabs, standing up only to get the leverage for a sharp right hook designed to render the dummy 'unconscious'.

The moment Ash knew the dummy was down for the count, she pulled the handcuffs from one of the many pockets on her pants and cuffed its hands together. She made a quick sweep through the rest of the 'apartment' and, finding nothing, rushed to the window. After flinging it wide open again, Ash hung out through the open panel and shouted, "Time!"

The clock on the wall stopped, showing one of the best times Ash had ever managed. By his own rules, Tony would have to watch the footage of how Ash had done in the hand-to-hand section, but the dummy hadn't landed a single blow and she had restrained it without incident. Ash was fairly certain she had passed the obstacle course without issue and would soon be receiving a suit to work with.

Before she was even aware of her own actions, Ash had climbed back out of the window and made her careful way down to the street, where she was surrounded by the various members of the Avengers. They had been watching from the control tower, ready to call points against Ash as they caught mistakes she had made. There had been a few minor ones, as it turned out, but nothing crucial enough to be brought up, they assured her.

From there, the group made their way to the weapons training area, where Ash was tested on her knowledge of and accuracy with several of the firearms and throwing knives. This was considered to be a bit less of a challenge, since she was already fully qualified to carry a firearm in a few different states and had passed many such tests. Ash passed this one as well, obviously, and was told to go relax for a while.

Exactly seventeen hours and twenty-two minutes later, Jarvis notified Ash that her final suit was ready and that she could go try it on at any point. Feeling distinctly like a child at Christmas, Ash went immediately. She reveled in the weight of the body armor, marveled at the smooth detailing where various pieces of Stark technology had been packed into the suit, and was nearly ecstatic to find that Tony hadn't gone through with his threat to paint everything in Iron Man's colors. Eventually, as Jarvis had told her, Tony had given in and decided that she should be able to choose her own paint scheme.

After giving it a few minutes of thought - and looking at several different samples through projections Jarvis had cast onto the suit as she wore it - Ash decided on a rich forest green with the edging and details in simple flat black. Jarvis insisted that she remove the suit before it was painted, as fumes were fumes and he didn't want anyone exposed to them, then proceeded onto quite a different topic while the suit was being worked on.

"Have you given any thought to what you wish to be called, Miss Akerstrom?"

"Um… No, not really. I didn't have an actual superhero name before and I don't really see a need for one now," Ash said honestly.

"I must respectfully disagree," Jarvis smoothly responded. "You have a legitimate suit now and a link to the Avengers. These things will make many of those who ignored you before now take you seriously. They'll want to know your name, and if you refuse to provide one, they'll likely name you themselves. And, as I'm sure you have seen with some of the other heroes, the media is rarely willing to be complimentary."

"That's true," Ash mused. "But how do I even go about picking a name? I don't have any one defining feature as a 'hero' and my powers really aren't anything to brag about…"

"Perhaps you should focus less on who you are as a hero and more on who you are as a person," Jarvis suggested. "Or choose a name based on the kind of person that your abilities have helped you become."

It was fairly solid advice and Ash considered it carefully. "Well, I deal a lot with people's feelings and how their situations affect them. I learn their stories and help them deal with the things they don't think they would be able to without my help. I want them to trust me - I know it sounds cheesy, but I want to be a sort of friend to people. I want them to know that I just want to help them."

"Is that what you would like to use as your name?"

Ash snorted. "'Friend'? I don't think so. It's a little simplistic."

"Of course, though there are a number of synonyms you could choose from. One of the possibilities is sure to strike you as a more sophisticated term."

"You might be right," Ash admitted. "Can you suggest anything in particular?"

"Ally, companion, compatriot, consort, confidante-"

"That one," Ash interrupted. "That's the one I want: Confidante."


Author's Note - Okay, another chapter with a little less Deadpool than you probably expected, but it should be the last one of its kind. Thanks for reading! If you have a moment, a review is like getting paid for a fanfic author. In any case, have a great day and I'll see you in two weeks!