another random multiverse Wade. we were lacking evil Wades.
warnings: AU - Fateverse. sci-fi. brief violence. pop culture references. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***, s***, and g**damn).
pairing: none/gen.
timeline: doesn't matter; maybe a couple of weeks after Gator Alert (Gemini), from Hope's perspective.
disclaimer: original versions of the characters belong to marvel. au and au versions belong to me.
notes: 1) the title is a reference to the song "Ain't No Rest for the Wicked," by Cage the Elephant. 2) "nat one" (short for "natural one") usually means rolling a twenty-sided die and having it land on 1. it's a paper-and-pen RPG reference. The very worst roll you can make in D&D, the nat one equals instant failure at whatever you just tried to do; if you have a mean and imaginative DM, this means that whatever you did just went horribly wrong (sometimes fatally). 3) "crit fail" = "critical failure," another reference to rolling a natural one in D&D. 4) yes, chemo is a poison. a horrible poison that does nasty things to the human body. 5) not everyone loses her hair during radiation therapy, and not all of the ones who do will lose all of their hair; but some patients lose every single hair on their bodies, including eyelashes. 6) Kidz Bop is evil. that is all. 7) remember, kids, only by selling your soul to AT&T can you surf and talk at the same time. 8) "vielen dank" is German for "many thanks" or "thanks a lot." 9) O'Neill's is a fairly famous Irish Pub near Westminster (in metropolitan London). 10) "lamentations of their women" is a Conan reference. in response to the question "what is best in life?" Conan replies "to crush your enemies, see them driven before you, and to hear the lamentations of their women." 11) Canada is not a British colony, it's a state. i've met Canadians who get very irked at being mislabeled "colonials." 12) "limey" is a somewhat derogatory nickname for all things British. 13) "merci beaucoup" is French for "thanks a lot." German and French are two of the major languages spoken in Switzerland. 14) The Glenlivet is widely considered one of the world's best whiskey distilleries. Glenlivet XXV does indeed retail between $300 and $350 per bottle, depending on where you shop. in terms of pounds sterling, that's somewhere in the neighborhood of £190 to £220. 15) "geizhals" is German for "cheapskate."
visit The Fateverse Glossary (merianmoriarty (dot) deviantart (dot) com/art/Fateverse-Glossary-174203180) for terms, concepts, Nodes, and important people.
No Rest for the Wicked
Wade believes very firmly that the world is shit.
He first formed this opinion when his mother (adoptive, anyhow) didn't die on the job as they'd both always expected.
No, Neena Thurman died of fricking cancer. Where was her epic luck stat when that roll was made? Nat one, crit fail. You fumble your attack so badly you trip over your own feet and fall on your sword. Only a lot more undignified, because she had to have poison injected in her veins for months—too tired for work, puking her guts up several times a day—and then get blasted with enough radiation to make her eyelashes fall out.
But she never once cried, and the only time he cried, she slapped the shit out of him and told him to pull himself together and 'stop being such a goddamn girl.'
Before that, he just felt that the world sucked. They were picky about their jobs—no children, no religious figures (except televangelists, but those are more corporate than religious), no particularly nice people (like Goodwill Ambassadors or kindergarten teachers).
These days, Wade will pretty much kill anybody. He'll kill sweet little ol' grannies. He'll kill scientists. He'll kill celebrities. He'll kill the goddamn Pope for the right dollar amount.
It's kinda a Sweeney Todd philosophy: bad people deserve to die, good people deserve mercy killing.
Last week, some asshole couldn't come up with the scratch by the promised deadline. So Wade took the guy's oldest son, tortured the kid to death on camera, and sent the video to the guy with a threat to do the same to the other two sons.
Hey, when you hire a contract killer, you better be ready to keep up your end of the contract.
Wade sold the organs he'd taken from the kid and counted it toward the client's debt, because he's nice like that. He did the same with the second kid, but included a warning that the estimate on the third kid wouldn't cover the bill. Turned out he needed to go through all three kids plus the mistress and the wife to break even. He killed the dog just because he was pissed off about having to kidnap and dismantle five people to get his money's worth. And then he sold the client's organs to cover the extra labor costs and drove off with the TV and the wife's jewelry in the guy's sweet-ass little Audi.
Yeah, he figures he's pretty much irredeemably evil. He's okay with that.
It's a nice TV.
Today, he's channel surfing, because he was a dumbass and let his TiVo subscription run out. His phone rings. He hits the button.
Over the sound of a Kidz Bop commercial, a woman's voice speaks.
~"In three days, billionaire Howard Stark will be in London for a philanthropic event. He and his family will be relatively unattended when they tour the Tower of London. Kill him before they leave, but don't damage the exhibits."~
"Numbers," he says.
~"Because of the high profile nature of both the target and the deed…a hundred million in advance, two hundred further upon completion."~
"How advance?"
~"The moment you say yes."~
He opens a web browser and goes to his usual bank's site.
"I like it. Three days, Tower of London, Howard Stark, don't hurt the museum pieces. You care about the wife 'n kid?"
~"Only if they get in your way. Otherwise, leave them."~
"Groovy. I'll do it."
He hangs up, refreshes the page.
A hundred mil deposited by wire. Vielen dank.
"Ka-ching," he says, tossing his phone onto the couch and getting up to pack. "O'Neill's, here I come…"
It's easy to get places fast and under the radar if you know a gal who flies freight and is willing to give you a ride. Ilaney is awesome that way.
Security hasn't gotten better since the last time he was in London. The Guinness hasn't improved either, but it's hard to improve upon perfection.
You'd think a billionaire could afford a bodyguard or two. It'll be the easiest three hundred mil he's ever made.
Some fancy-pants lady in classy frump is showing them around the place. Wade offs her and two guards. Slice 'n dice, two swings.
"Howard!" cries the wife, grabbing their kid.
"Look, I'll give you whatever you want."
Wade laughs. "Man, if I had a nickel for every time somebody's said that to me…it'd still only be about ten percent of my lifetime earnings, but it'd be an impressive amount."
"Just…please, please don't hurt my family."
Wade considers the sniveling widow-to-be. "That one I've heard a little less often. Whatever." He shrugs and gets ready to take another swing.
And then some chick walks in.
Big ol' redhead with a pistol strapped to her thigh and a crystal ball in her hand. "Oh," she says. "Sorry, Wade, I didn't realize you were here."
What.
She holds out her crystal ball. "Mr. Stark, if you could speak toward the crystal ball, please?"
"Who the hell are you?" Stark obligingly asks.
The ball beeps and says, ~Ident confirmed.~ Whatever that means.
The redhead clears her throat. "Howard Stark GGN299, your phasic resonance exceeds this bundle's acceptable margin of eighty-five percent. This charge and your culpability are not in question. It has been determined that you will be subject to summary re-tuning."
What.
"Whoa, time-out, Ginger," Wade says. "I got paid a hundred mil in advance to off this guy, and I'll get another two hundred mil after. I'm gonna kill him. Do we have a problem?"
"I do actually have a nametag on my shirt," the girl says, pointing to her left boob. "And I'm not thrilled about the comparison to a brainless Gilligan's Island character. Or the implication of soullessness, if that's what you were going for. But if you were gonna kill him anyway, that's great. Saves me the trouble. Can you get the wife and leave the son, while you're at it? If you can't, that's cool, I can do it."
"What is wrong with you people?" sobs the wife.
~Ident confirmed,~ the crystal ball says again.
"Maria Stark GGN287-Beta, your phasic resonance exceeds this bundle's acceptable margin of eighty-five percent. This charge and your culpability—"
Wade gets Stark across the throat. Messy as hell, but satisfying.
The wife screams.
"Ah, the lamentations of their women," Wade sighs happily.
The redhead (whose boobtag says 'Summers'…heh…what's the name of the other one?) is covering her ears to block out the noise. "Jeez, lady. I gotta use these eardrums."
Wade takes care of the wife with a stab through the heart. "This is so Bruce Wayne. Kid, you got any plans to grow up and be a costumed vigilante?"
Probably not, but it's hard to tell from the shell-shocked way the kid's just gaping.
"Whatever you do, don't pick an animal theme. Those are so last-generation."
"The right one's name is Princess Fifi, by the way," says the redhead. "Thanks for your cooperation, Wade, and enjoy your three hundred million bucks." Then she vanishes in a flash of light.
"Who names a tit 'Princess Fifi'?" he wonders aloud.
He gets out the same way he got in. Then he drops by O'Neill's for another five or six pints while he waits for Ilaney to call.
Breaking news. Zillionaire awesomepants engineer Howard Stark and his first-lady-esque wife have been found dead under suspicious circumstances at the Tower of London. Bam-splat.
"Bloody Americans," someone complains from down the bar.
"Say it again, Limey," Wade dares the guy.
The guy stands up. He's four inches taller than Wade, has boxing scars all over his knuckles. "I said all ya dirty colonial bastards should get out of our country and take yer damn scandals wiv ya."
Wade breaks his pint glass with the guy's face. "I'm Canadian," he says. To the bartender, he adds, "Sorry about the glass." He pulls out his phone and checks his balance.
Two hundred mil, deposited by wire. Merci beaucoup.
Ilaney calls.
Wade pays his tab. He can hear sirens, which probably means the bartender called the cops.
He could not possibly give less of a shit. He walks out casually while the police are pulling up.
Ilaney has a shipment of Scottish booze in her plane. She tells Wade she's counted every ounce of it and better not find any missing.
"Oh, I can pay for it," he promises, and pries open a crate of Glenlivet.
"Three-fifty a bottle!" she yells at him.
"Bullshit, I saw it going for two hundred pounds," he snorts, and gives her exactly three hundred dollars.
"Geizhals," she mutters.
The world is shit, but twenty-five-year-old Scotch and good TV make it almost tolerable. While he's thinking about it, he pops online and renews his TiVo subscription.
.End.