Disclaimer: I don't own Marvel, nor am I affiliated with them in any way. All characters (aside from Nev, Rexgar, Gaerna, and Tarom) are not of my creation, and I have no rights to them.
The chapter title is an altered lyric by the band AFI. I am not affiliated with the band in any way and hold no rights to the song.
My cohorts are hanging around on the floor that the security room is on (where Nev is practicing, assuming she's still there). I know they can't leave the building for another 36 hours, but I didn't expect to see them here.
Turn and leave, they haven't even seen you yet. Just go home.
"Wilson, hang on," Rogers says. I cringe, and stop and let everyone gather around me. I still feel a little defensive and graze my fingers over my pistol. "I wanted to thank you, for your work last night. You saved a lot of people."
"I killed a lot too. Pretty much still a mindless killing machine," I say. "Can I go please?"
"You're not. You're part of our team now," he says with a smile.
"I am, though. That's all I've heard all my life. I believe it now. I wouldn't have done it if I thought my life was worth anything," I laugh sadly. "Now you're all just being nice to me because I flipped my shit at Red and tried to kill myself with a grenade. Soon as we get back into routine, things'll start back up between us and I'll be a grimace and a 'Oh, that's just Deadpool.' I'm like the Moon Moon of SHIELD."
"Stop tryin'a be a martyr, Wilson. We're tryin'a be nice-" Logan starts.
"Trying, yeah, I know. I'm glad everyone heard what I said yesterday. Nev's known me what, three weeks? Two? She's more accepting than any of you. Mutants who've been chastised and discriminated against most of your lives and you still can't have a single shred of empathy for me. 'Cept you, Hulky, and even you had to learn it from Stark which is hi-LARIOUS, because he's the definition of self-absorbed. And not even a targeted mutant so there's that too." Everyone looks a little dumbfounded.
"Do you not want us to accept you?" Tony asks finally. I shrug.
"I'm so used to you not accepting me that I don't care anymore. I figure even if you do, you'll just turn on me again," I say, and bully past them to get to the other side of this floor. Thankfully, they don't follow me. They've likely chalked this up to me needing to calm down more, and really they probably aren't wrong.
The lights in the room are mostly dark when I reach the room, but Nev is there, intently watching the screen. I watch her for a moment as I take my mask off, hoping she isn't going to be angry. I push the door open, and she looks up. If she hadn't jumped up and rushed me, I likely would have done it to her.
"I'm torn between not letting you go and killing you," she murmurs as she hugs me very close to her. I hold onto her in return.
Holding on? You're clinging. Like a koala.
"I can't die. I'd know, I just did my best attempt at it," I tell her.
"I know. You scared me. Idiot," she murmurs into my neck, not unkindly. She moves a hand to my head, cradling it against hers, stroking with her thumb. The panic and nightmare hallucinations are fading from my immediate memory as I relax against her.
"I told them to leave me there. I was really sure I was going to die. I didn't want you to see that," I tell her. She sighs quietly.
"Idiot," she says again. "You aren't allowed to do any of that dying stuff even if it was possible. This may be difficult to get used to, but you have someone who demands your return now."
"I know. That's why I'm grateful they didn't listen to me," I answer, starting to kiss whatever skin I can reach.
"Did you at least thank them?" she asks, tilting her head sideways for me.
"No. I yelled at them," I say without giving it a lot of thought, more interested in kissing her than talking about it.
"Gosh dangit. C'mon, this can wait just a bit longer." She steps back and runs her hands over my arms, down to my hands which she holds and starts to lead me out of the room. "You have to play nice." She pecks her lips against mine.
"I don't trust them," I say flatly as she drops my hands. I'm just following her because…
Why are we doing this? No one's ever held this much sway over us.
"Because it feels right." She looks at me.
"Saying you appreciate them taking care of you? It should. Time to get integrated!" she says.
"They'll probably stick a brain slug on me," I grumble.
"No they won't. After this, we'll go get dinner. Lunch. Whatever time it is," she bribes. I keep dragging myself along behind her.
"Only 'cause I could really go for some pizza. I regret revealing to you that food bribes work on me," I say, noting how whiney I sound. She stops.
"You're embarrassed." I don't answer her or even want to see her expression. She takes my hand and squeezes. "It's fine. They aren't evil monsters that want you dead. They saved you. Tell 'em thanks, say you've got stuff to do, and we're gone." She's stopped us at Fury's office and has gone in, leaving me standing in the hallway like an actual idiot.
"Everyone who has to stay, where are they? Gathered in a room having a LAN party?" Nev asks him.
"Twenty third floor debriefing room. Why? Wanna tell 'em thanks for saving your thick-headed almost-hero?" he asks. I don't know if he's aware I can hear him. Nev sighs at him.
"No. I'm going to make him at least pretend like he wants to be part of their little clique," she says. He snorts.
"Good luck." Her expression shows her displeasure as she leaves the room.
On the bright side, in playing nice you can now prove Fury wrong. The actual heroes get their egos stroked, Fury looks like a fool. Ok, we are feeling better about this!
"Wade. Come over to the 23rd floor. It is your destiny," she says, gesturing to the elevator.
"I've never actually watched any of those films all the way through," I admit, walking with her. She shrugs.
"Me either. My sci-fi interest begins and ends with Doctor Who," she explains with a nod. Her fingers lace with mine as we stand in the lift, and her hand squeezes as we step off, and she tugs when I stop outside the room. She stands patiently with me, waiting til I've worked up the courage and let go of the shame enough to enter the room. Of course, everyone notices and is silent as they all look at me like I'm here to kill them.
"So that's why you were in a hurry to run off," Steve offers with a smile.
If he doesn't bring it up, don't do it yourself.
"Uh, yeah. Hard mission and all, kinda just wanted to let her know I'm ok," I lie slowly. "Fury personally debriefed me already."
"Hard mission? Wouldn'ta been if you hadn't-"
"If you hadn't done that, it's possible we wouldn't be here now, alive," Peter cuts Logan off, catching on to what Steve's trying to do. I feel Nev's hands slide into mine again as I try to fish for something to say that won't get me shot.
"Glad you came back. We do actually want to thank you. You know, treat you like the member of the team that you are," Stark says, leaning back and putting his shoes on the table. "I mean, you get special treatment, you get to leave early but- Ow!" Banner's jabbed him in the side.
"Go on, Wilson. Your night was a little bit harder than ours, you deserve to go home a little early," he offers gently. Syrin hasn't said anything, thankfully, but I do catch the intent stare she's got on Nev, who has now linked her arm with mine.
"Thanks for dragging him back here," Nev adds.
"He's stubborn, but there's only one of him versus what, five of us, equally as stubborn?" Steve jokes.
"Yeah. I'll thank you all by ordering you some food from Cotija's and eating it for you," I say, trying to back out of the room.
"We take care of our own," Beast says almost… with a friendly tone.
This feels weird. Get out of here before they burst into a conga line singing Disney songs.
Nev walks out with me, and is still holding my hand as we reach the ground level and make for the doors.
"See. That wasn't so bad," she says.
"Yeah but you know every time someone tells you 'Oh this won't hurt' or 'It'll be over before you know it', that shit's always a lie," I say. "I had good reason not to trust you. Grown-ups lie about that and all the other age groups are starting to learn the same game." Nev chuckles as she settles in the passenger seat of the company vehicle. We'd left it here the night I got plastered, and here it was still waiting for us. "Are you really horribly starving? Because I really just want to go home and maybe sleep for a week."
"I'm not starving, no," she replies. "Sleep sounds like a great plan. Soon as you let that stupid grenade off - which you did a piss poor job trying to hide, might I add - I shut myself up in the practice room. I'd been testing for probably two or three hours when you finally showed up." She lets her hair down as I pull onto the street to get us home. It nearly reaches her waist, but she usually has it up. I like it down better.
I also like it when she pulls me into the house and down the hall to bed, when she strips down to her skivvies, when she gets into bed with me and our skin touches in so many places. Specifically, I like feeling the skin of her throat under my lips. And the catch in her breath tells me she does, too. She bows her head after several minutes of such affection being exchanged between us, nuzzling her face to my chest and curling against me.
"Tired? We've been up at least 24 hours," I ask her, voice barely above a whisper.
"Mm," is all I receive, and I know she's already half asleep. I pull the blanket up over us more, we'd again forgotten the heater but it should be ok.
Even if she isn't, you're radiating enough heat to keep that from being an issue.
I kiss the top of her head to keep from answering the voice. I don't want to wake her. I instead join her in sleep.
"No wait, where am I going?"
"Stop, you're going the wrong way."
"What's this guy even look like?"
"He's flying, you can't miss him! Between the billowing cape, the fire he's shooting out of his eyes – damn it Wade just follow the destruction."
"But we've been chasing him forever!"
"He wouldn't have been so difficult to catch if Tony hadn't-"
"Hadn't what, made a big announcement that we were here, Captain Loudmouth?"
"Hey, found him!" I leap-frog over Tony, using the momentum to land on our D list bad guy. I don't know who he is.
If that's the case, he won't last long. No name? No fame.
"Yeah, short lived super villain career," I answer.
"Wh- *choke wheeze* what are you *cough* talking about?" my target gasps out. I practice my right hook on his jaw.
"Wade, take it easy, we need him alive," Steve calls. I look over my shoulder at him.
"He can be alive and missing some teeth, right?" I ask. Tony pulls me off and Steve helps the guy up. "What are you supposed to be anyway? Cape and fire eyebeams? Pretty lame." The guy tries to answer but it sounds a lot like gibberish.
Looks like you broke his jaw. Probably in a couple places.
"It isn't my fault he ran into my fist," I say.
"Stop punching people who aren't resisting," Steve reprimands, though his voice is still kind. "Tony, get him to the mansion, I know the fire beams will be of interest to them. Maybe they can help him. I'm going to get the injured out of here."
"Good plan." Stark hoists the guy's broken body over his shoulder. "Meet you back at SHIELD," he says to me with a wave. He can still fly around carrying a guy, and that's exactly what he does.
Walking isn't bad. Tones the gluts.
"I'm not Jillian Michaels here," I grumble, starting off towards the building. We weren't really all that far away from it, and the walk back to the building is short. It's pushing Christmas, so my only complaint is the cold. I don't like holidays. I act like I do, I go over board with it. But they're not something I like participating in. Maybe because I'm usually alone. Maybe because the Christmas music-
"The next person to rig Christmas music into the PA system will be chemically castrated by one of the newbies! And no, none of our doctors will be around to assist you!" Hill screams. The music has stopped. I start for the lift, but it opens and dispenses one Peter Parker before I can get on.
"You here about Fire Eyes?" he asks.
"Is that what you're calling him? Sounds like a bad porn name," I say, laughing. Peter frowns.
"Then what do you suggest?" he asks.
"I dunno, The Flying Moron? The Toothless Pyro?" I shrug. "I don't really care, but we aren't using Fire Eyes." He points behind me, at the doors.
"That way. This is being transferred to the mansion and the school, he's mutant and possibly one of the escapees. We aren't sure yet," he says as he starts walking past me towards the exit. I turn and follow.
"Why are you going?" I prod. He zips his coat up.
"I offered to help. I have nothing going on, this place gets very quiet around the holidays. Right now, there's this fool and the clean up at the school. Most of the de… the fallen have been given proper treatment. The building is getting rebuilt, the damage was pretty extensive. He had a pretty formidable army. What I don't think we were aware of was that he had plants, in the school. He had two in the mansion, that was how he got in," Peter rambles.
"Why would he put a Ficus in the school?" I ask, confused. Peter sighs.
"No, not that kind of plant," he says, shaking his head.
"Wait a sec, why am I going? My job is done, I caught the guy. Game over, go home, get dinner, stuff like that," I protest, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. Peter stops too, looking back at me. He just shrugs.
"It would look good. I know you're anxious to get back to Nev but do some PR work. She'll understand, and you'll make her AND everyone else happy with your willingness to help," he explains.
Maybe we should try doing that thing where we trust him and listen to him.
"Last time we listened to Parker we sent four people to the burn ward," I say out loud.
"It wasn't meant to be taken literally," Peter says, smiling at the memory, likely only because no one was seriously injured. He's looking at me like he's simply waiting for me to start walking again.
You can come home later tonight and tell Nev what you did, and she will be happy. Let's do dis!
And I actually feel kind of good about this as I retake my place at Peter's side and follow him to the X Mansion.