no, as a matter of fact, i can't write good fight scenes to save my life.
warnings: Movieverse (as-yet unnumbered Earth version; NOT Earth-616/Main Comicverse) with bits of the Wolverine Gameverse and B&T ficverse mushed onto it. incredible amounts of AU and technobabble. angsty bits and off-screen AU character deaths. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***, s*** and g**damn).
pairing: Logan/Wade (with hints of Nate/Wade and Toni/Steve).
timeline: other than "right after Delimit," doesn't matter.
disclaimer: i doesn't owns the movies or the characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.
notes: 1) after i read through again, it wasn't immediately obvious when Nate was experiencing someone else's memories/subconscious thoughts, so i set those sections off with .: and :.. 2) sentient Nodes can be sensed by telepaths. now you know. 3) Evil Nate and Evil Cap are Horsemen of Apocalypse in their home universe (Death and War, respectively). more on that later, and internet cookies if you can guess who ended up as Famine in their universe. 4) i may or may not revisit Evil Natasha's world and her messed up resolution to CW.
visit The Fateverse Glossary (merianmoriarty (dot) deviantart (dot) com/art/Fateverse-Glossary-174203180) for terms, concepts, Nodes, and important people.
Detonate
Nathan didn't often use his telepathy anymore; he'd spent so much time around Nodes and various regenerating mutants that he'd walled that part of his mind off.
The current situation was dire, however, and only a telepath could reliably track their enemy without giving away their own position. And so he tore down a little section of that wall, just enough to let him reach beyond it.
Hovering behind him, the twins. The usual, 'normal' progression of thoughts and feelings. Excited. Anxious. Feels good to be out again, and I think my left foot just fell asleep, and Okay, we can do this, and God, that burger was good.
To his right, Logan. A dull flit of basic emotions. Annoyance. Impatience.
Ahead, the Traveler. A deafening roar of rapid-fire impressions, nonsense and laughter and blood.
In the Traveler's hand, Forecaster. An endless stream of calculation, even in its 'sleep.' Numbers, bad jokes, fractal probability collisions… The unrelenting blink of a pre-programmed timeslide waiting to execute.
He was going to have a headache after this.
"Focus, pookie," the Traveler grunted. "I wanna know that we're taking them by surprise."
Slowly, carefully, Nathan probed forward through the compound, trying to verify the coordinates Kali had given them. He was looking for two Horsemen, a tyrant, an animal, and a madman. Such minds wouldn't exactly blend in.
There.
The five intruding minds were a dark, cool blob, and he hesitated to go deeper—but he had to read them to know for sure. One heavily shielded, clearly his counterpart. One a feral mass of bloodlust. The other three…
can't just get it over with
died and put her in charge
wait. wait. wait. almost.
"She's waiting for something," Nathan said aloud, slipping as stealthily as possible into the woman's mind.
fix this. i can fix this. just need a sentient one, so i can find the right timeline. get him back. fix everything. just wait for me.
.: Steve Rogers. One of the bundles that manifested the Civil War event. Public executions. He meets her eyes at the last moment. She shatters with a straight face. :.
Nathan pulled away quickly, pressing a knuckle between his eyebrows, where the pain had started already. "Not us. She's not waiting for us."
The messy tumble of the Traveler's consciousness briefly resolved to an image of a sword and a blond man in shackles.
"Ah," said the Traveler. "She's that one. Shit. Well, she ain't gonna be happy to see me."
"You were the executioner," Nathan realized.
"Not one of my finer moments. But it was a job—a career, in fact, with a yearly salary and benefits. She told me to do it. Nobody else had the stomach to kill ex-Avenger vigilantes on national television. And then she flipped her fucking lid and tried to have me hunted down."
Nathan glanced up. "And then what?"
The Traveler looked at him, face expressionless. "And then I killed them, too. That's the tough thing about equipping a guy to assassinate metas: who the hell can you send to take him out, right? She apologized, which was nice, and I agreed to go mind my own beeswax on a tropical island somewhere, and I haven't been back since…which makes me wonder if she managed to have me killed. That would be a complete crying shame, too, because I had this sweet little twenty-something cabana boy who couldn't speak a word of English. Abs you could crack a coconut on."
Shaking his head, Nathan backed toward the wall and leaned against it while he tried to clear stray traces from his mind. "The Node-lock was accurate; they're exactly where they should be, and they're all together."
"Good. Speed, can you drop this floor without killing us?"
"I could—" Will started to say, but the Traveler cut him off with a sharp gesture.
"You just do your job. I ain't explaining to the Auditor how I managed to let her other dad end up just like the first one, so you keep your damn concentration on one thing."
Tom looked around, paced the perimeter of the room. "Yeah. If everybody stands in the middle, I can blow the edges and drop us right in. Might even land on Iron Bitch."
"Let's not count on that," Will suggested.
The Traveler beckoned. "Everybody form up and shut up; Miss Stark can't scan us, thanks to the worry-wart's lifesign scrambler, but I guarantee our pal Wolverine will hear us yakking." He stood in the very center of the room and flexed his arms—two gleaming blades slid out from between his knuckles.
Nathan stared without meaning to.
Like most Wades, the Traveler was a lithe creature, poised and cat-like and full of deadly speed and strength. He looked beautiful and statuesque as he waited. Calm face, deep breathing, intent eyes.
Logan stepped between them with a warning scowl, and Nathan moved to follow the twins into the middle of the room.
Tom couldn't keep from fidgeting, but he wisely refrained from tapping his feet.
Carefully, Nathan stretched his powers out again, hooked onto the least disturbing mind.
.: He tells himself he's following her lead because it's just what he's used to. Antonia was always a better tactician, and they're in hostile territory with uncertain allies. Death trusts her, and since Death can read her mind, he figures he can trust her, too. :.
just for a little while. just for now.
.: He doesn't like how much the cold-hearted despot looks like his best friend, but he can swallow a lot of bitter pills if it means getting his hands on the power to find the perfect timeline, to undo joining Apocalypse, to get Antonia back. He—the feral has stopped, is sniffing around like something's wrong. He unhooks his shield from his back. :.
Nathan grasped Tom's forearm, and the room was surrounded by a wall of sound and fire for a split-second before the floor fell out from under them.
Spider-Man waved dust and smoke away from his face. "Yikes, the place is out to get—oh."
And bedlam broke out.
Nathan concentrated carefully, ignoring Logan leaping for his black-clad counterpart, Tom chasing Spider-Man with fists and feet and minor explosions, Will floating high above to shield them, the Traveler vanishing in a curl of reddish smoke to reappear with one blade blocked by a vibranium shield and the other impaling a cybernetic arm.
Nathan's job was to get his hands on the Node, by telekinesis if possible, by destroying Iron Woman's suit if necessary. The Traveler had very kindly acknowledged that Nathan and Hope both hated to waste life. If Nathan could just get Archimedes away from them, Forecaster was waiting to bodyslide them straight into the Null-Resonance suspension field in the containment facility.
She was trying to fight the Traveler, but it seemed that even against three powerful enemies, he could hold his own just fine. He flipped nimbly out of the way of a repulsor blast, forcing War to raise his shield quickly to deflect it.
"Hey, look at that, ya missed me!" the Traveler mused, ducking a fist and rolling away from several more blasts. "Oh, boss, I knew you had a soft spot for me. I see you replaced your toy—looks just like the old model, don't you think that's kinda boring? What if this one decides to side against you, too? Should I just off him now to save time? I wouldn't mind, because he 'n Evil Nate here killed me once."
"Pestilence?" War exclaimed, shocked.
"Hi, War!"
"You!" shrieked Iron Woman.
"Me!" the Traveler cheerfully answered, pausing to grin cheekily. His audacity earned him the edge of War's shield in his face (there was a splash of blood, a metallic clang, a flicker of disturbed holographics). "Now with one hundred percent more adamantium! Or, actually, more like about a hundred and ten, with the swords."
Nathan didn't dare try to interfere in the frenzied melee; he simply watched the Node in Iron Woman's left hand.
Spider-Man went flying through the air five inches in front of Nathan (on fire, no less) and slammed into Iron Woman's shoulder, sending the Node tumbling to the ground.
"Yes! Who's the man? I'm the man! Shepherd one, Parker nil."
Nathan grabbed for the Node as quickly as he could, and it obediently shot toward him…
…only to be caught by War as he spun to throw his shield. Tom, needless to say, dodged.
While Iron Woman was still staggered, the Traveler tagged her with the electromagnetic scrambler Tony had given them—as promised, her suit locked up and keeled over like a felled tree.
Above, in the room where they'd waited, there was a sound of metal bouncing off metal and a brief cry from Will…and Nathan felt something in the air change.
"Ah," said Death. "Enough of this."
And suddenly Tom's next volley of explosions hit an invisible barrier.
"Shit," Nathan muttered. Without thinking, he pulled a slab of metal from the nearest wall and threw it in front of Tom as a shield. Broken line of sight would make it much harder to use telekinetic attacks, and the dense material would slow a dissolution attack long enough for Tom to run. Just in case, he felt outward with his old senses, latched onto the mass of molecules that made up the younger mutant, and held them together with all his might.
There was a curious pause in the action. Logan had temporarily incapacitated his opponent, Spider-Man was out cold, War was kneeling beside Iron Woman.
Beyond the fragment of wall, Nathan's counterpart said, "Now, darling, you're not really going to kill me."
"You know how good I am about returning favors, sweetheart."
Nathan had enough time to take two steps toward War and the Node before a blinding red beam sliced through the corridor.
"Hm, a new trick," said Death, unconcernedly. "I'm afraid you'll have to do better than that, dear."
"I got it!" Tom yelled, blasting War into a wall and scooping up Archimedes before it hit the ground.
The five invaders vanished in a flash of light, just before the Traveler could put two blades through Death's head.
Then there was a groan of metal.
Nathan nudged up and out at the walls and ceiling with his powers.
"Sure, blow a bunch of holes in the place, then throw a frigging armor-clad evil Captain America into a structural support beam," snapped the Traveler.
Tom made a snide face. "Well, you're the one who sliced out a bunch of wall with a laser-thing. Besides, they're gone, and we have Archie. You okay up there, Will?"
"I fingk I loscht schum teef," came the miserable reply. "Dat fing hitsch hard." Sluggishly, Will floated down to them. His nose and mouth were bloody, and a diagonal line of bruising was just starting to show.
Tom immediately rushed to his brother's side. "Let me see…"
"I'll be fide, mom."
Nathan nodded to the Traveler. "Any time you're ready to call the slide."
"Don't," Wade said, still facing away, blades buried in the wall. "Don't talk. Don't say a single goddamn word. I don't wanna hear your stupid voice."
Without meaning to, Nathan caught a snatch of replayed memory.
.: The hand on his back is warm, but he shivers. :.
When Lord Apocalypse rules all, we'll be kings. Kings, my love. We four Horsemen will crush any and all we see fit.
.: He's horrified. He realizes that the man he loves has gone way past 'joining the winning side' and into 'ruling the world, BWAHAHAHA!' territory. Something inside him breaks, and he suddenly can't feel. He isn't afraid, or angry, or sad, or…anything. :.
Nathan faltered a step, blinked away the haze as he watched dark eyes lock on him with that odd mix of love and hate that he'd seen when the Traveler first arrived.
"Let's get Hope's info on the last Node so we can get the fuck out of here," the Traveler muttered, pulling his swords free.
Mutely nodding, Nathan decided to use his telepathy instead of the comm-link to call Reed.
.End.