Well, this took a little while. Longer than I expected, if I'm honest, but my muse decided to spend a while playing with my Marvel/Star Wars work, and that is not something I ever imagined I would say. Well, the Star Wars part, anyway. It's called Children of the Stars if you want to read it and haven't already, and yes, as one of my correspondents has pointed out, I do need to stop calling stories 'COS'. Also, I may have re-read a lot of old favourites.

Anyhow, part of what took so long was that I was trying to get it to the point where I could reasonably conclude this in the next chapter, because I am acutely aware of how my stories tend to blow up. Any guesses on the villain's real identity may or may not be answered, but I will be impressed if anyone figures it out. So far, only one person I didn't outright tell has.

SilverLion80: Doc Croc was actually trying to make him sane again, and got interrupted before he finished the job. Though, frankly, if he'd been torturing Jamie Braddock nuts, it would have been well-earned – dude was a slaver. Well, yeah, it's Deadpool. You're not far wrong, regarding Peter, but you're not totally right, either.

"Who the fuck are you?" Carol demanded.

"I'm the special guest star. Last minute addition to the cast by the author, I can understand why you didn't get the memo," the swordsman said casually. "Basically, it's just a cameo – I come, I see, I stab." He pointed one blade at Gambit. "Him, to be exact. In the process, I throw out a few quips, make some references, and a good time is had by all. Except him, because he's dead, but you can't please everybody."

"Right. Jus' another mercenary," Gambit said, setting himself.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa. Whoa," the mercenary said, sounding genuinely offended, raising both swords and spreading his hands. "Excuse you, Mr Funky Seductive Accent, I am not 'just another mercenary'. I refuse to be regarded as just another notch on the bedpost. I believe in committing to a relationship – even if it is brief, financially driven, and based around killing you. Allow me to introduce myself. I am –"

"A man of wealth and taste?" Peter quipped, before he could stop himself.

"Yes and no. Wealth, not so much, though I will be considerably closer once I dispose of your trench-coated friend," the mercenary said. "Taste, absolutely. I mean, if you take a look at my swords –katanas designed by the finest knock-offs on the East Coast – and my many, many guns, all of which are vintage – they've been to Iraq, Yugoslavia, Jacksonville… all the hotspots – and finally…" He bared a wrist with a flourish. "My watch. Only the finest."

All three peered at it.

"… that's a Hello Kitty watch," Peter said.

"It's special edition," the mercenary said, sounding childishly offended, blank masked eyes widening to match as he put his hands on his hips, swords standing out like wings. "Anyway, before I was so rudely interrupted by Night of the Living Goth, I was about to announce myself: I am Deadpool. I also answer to Mr Pool, if we're being formal, or Dead, if we're friends."

"I'm going to go out on a limb and say that your parents didn't give you that name," Carol said slowly, still processing the bizarre situation.

"No, I picked it myself. Well, my friends all kind of picked it for me, when they picked me for the Dead Pool," Deadpool explained.

"An' de Dead Pool would be bettin' that y' would die?"

"Within that calendar month, yeah," Deadpool said casually. "It was our thing, you know? Jokes on them – I had cancer, but now I'm immortal."

"Immortal?" Gambit asked. "Indestructible, or y' talking healing factor?"

"Healing factor," Deadpool said. "On par with or superior to the one and only Wolverine. I can even regrow limbs with this baby."

"Right," Gambit said. "An'… y' here t' kill me."

"Yeah. Nothing personal. It's just the job, you know? Especially this one: certainty of death, small chance of success, smaller probability of huge pay-out? Sounds like my kind of gig."

"Uh-huh," Gambit said, strolling over to Carol, who had tensed up, eyes narrowing with rage, placing himself between her and Deadpool. "Easy," he said, in gentle apparent admonishment. "Man's just doin' his job. Down here, y' learn early that a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do, t' keep above water."

"I'm so glad that you're being so understanding about this," Deadpool said.

Gambit, his back to the mercenary, winked at Carol, and flicked his gaze downwards. She followed his gaze, and her eyes widened.

"Feelin's mutual," he said.

Deadpool paused, then tilted his head, trying to look past Gambit. "Hey, isn't that that glow that things get when you – oh chocolate sprinkled fucksicles."

In a blur, Gambit slipped Carol's now glowing shield off her unresisting arm, and spun, whipping it at the colourful mercenary with a scream of tearing air like it was Hell's own frisbee. The force on impact was later calculated to be approximately equivalent to that of a small cruise missile.

More immediately, it was calculated to be approximately equivalent to something extremely loud that took out the door and entire front wall of Gambit's attic, along with cratering the edge of the roof of the next-door building, before shield and mercenary crumpled the roof of a battered old Volkswagen Beetle with a scream of metal and a shattering of glass.

All three stared after the small trail of destruction. Then, Carol looked over at Gambit and folded her arms, as Peter vomited in the background.

"If there are stains on my shield, you're paying to get it cleaned."

OoOoO

Peter had what he felt was a reasonable tolerance for weirdness. Being turned most of the way into a vampire and cured, while also spending an evening with a bunch of vampires, their King (who was the actual Dracula), a teenage super soldier, a teenage super soldier's super-spy super-grandma, another super soldier (who had turned out to have formerly been brainwashed as the Winter Soldier and he had been sworn to so much secrecy about that, it was unreal), a hairy man with claws, a Cajun super-ninja who blew stuff up, a couple of wizards, an Asgardian, an Asgardian demigod Prince, a possibly Asgardian demigod Princess (he wasn't too sure about that), and latterly, an armour wearing sorcerer-king, would give you that. If, you know, it didn't drive you crazy.

However, the sight of a weird super-mercenary being blasted across the street and down into (through) a car roof by a sort of exploding magic shield (and how did that work? He knew the shield was really, really weird, and definitely not just a shield, but everything else Gambit charged blew up, yet it looked intact from here) was making him reconsider. If nothing else, it was certainly challenging his tolerance for disgusting stuff. Seriously, downside of enhanced senses? He could smell ruptured bowels from all the way up in Gambit's apartment.

Now, they were down on the street as, unbelievably, the mercenary was still alive. And complaining. Despite having his chest caved in and almost having been cut in half by the shield which Carol had just retrieved (and was holding with a disgusted expression, because while she'd done something with the residual charge that had cooked off all the yucky stuff, it still kind of smelled). Once, Peter would have considered this a miracle of existence. And then thrown up.

Now, as he prudently grabbed Deadpool's discarded katanas, he was a bit less positive. But on the other hand, he wasn't as likely to barf any more. Mostly because he didn't have much left to barf up, but that was how it went sometimes.

"Seriously? Was that really necessary?" Deadpool demanded, levering himself up and into the tip of Gambit's bo staff.

"Y' were goin' t' kill me," the mutant thief pointed out evenly.

"Well, yeah, but it wasn't personal," Deadpool grumbled.

"This ain't personal either," Gambit said equably. "Carol, frisk 'im."

Carol looked at the still partially splattered Deadpool, up at Gambit, back down at Deadpool, then finally up at Gambit again. "I hate you," she said flatly.

"Fine, y' threaten 'im, I'll frisk 'im," Gambit said. "Happy?"

Carol hopped up onto the bonnet of the car, hefting her shield. "Very," she said.

"I personally don't mind having either of your hands on my body," Deadpool piped up.

Carol smiled sweetly and stepped on his groin. Hard.

"Ow, Jesus! Do you have any idea how long those take to grow back?"

"Well, this visit is meant to be educational, so I don't see the harm in finding out," Carol said.

The mercenary eyed her, the blank eyes of his mask narrowing. "You remind me of someone," he said.

Gambit, meanwhile, briskly and efficiently removed a large amount of weaponry, which vanished onto his person. "Get 'im up," he said. "Even for 'round 'ere, we're pushin' up against de response time."

"I could scream for help," Deadpool pointed out.

"And I could shove the exhaust up your ass and hot-wire the engine," Carol said, dripping with saccharine malice.

Deadpool stared at her. "… Yeah, there's definitely something familiar about you. I'm not sure if it's the hair, the rack, or the cheerful hyper-violence. That's not a criticism, by the way. Some of my best friends are psychopaths."

Carol growled and yanked him out of the car by his throat.

"Do you want to die?" she asked.

"Since that would separate me from the three things I love most in this world – my wife, Golden Girls reruns, and my long-term revenge plan – I'd go with no," Deadpool said. "Also, I'm not sure if I actually can, and I think you can kind of see why."

"Carol," Gambit said sharply.

Carol let out a disgusted sigh, and nodded as she slung the mercenary over her shoulder, both in concession to Deadpool's point and Gambit's unspoken one – the rest of this conversation would have to wait.

OoOoO

As it was, it waited about forty minutes, while Gambit identified another convenient safe room, this one in a building site with minimal security (or at least, minimal security by the standards of a thief of Gambit's calibre), Deadpool endangered his own life a total of thirteen times by nattering in Carol's ear, and Peter wisely prevented him from doing so for a fourteenth time by distracting him as Carol dumped him on the floor and Gambit cuffed him to a pipe, before casing the perimeter.

"Why do you wear a mask?" he asked curiously. "I mean, people clearly know who you are…"

"It's part of the Deadpool brand, Petey," Deadpool said. "Also, it's a disguise."

"A disguise," Carol said flatly. "As what?"

"As something other than this," Deadpool said and pulled his mask up with his free hand. The sight was not pleasant, nor aided by the grin adorning his face.

"Jesus fucking Christ, did a bomb do that to you?" Carol interjected, horrified. An uncle in the military, a cousin and grandmother in special ops and espionage, and a boyfriend who managed to involve himself in more trouble than all of the above put together had meant that she'd encountered more than a few unpleasant injuries. Including to said boyfriend. She tried not to think about that, most of the time.

"Nah," Deadpool said. "See, I'm actually a clone of Ryan Reynolds, but I got bitten by a radioactive Shar-Pei. It was very tragic."

Peter eyed him. "I can see," he said.

"Well, my super-suit isn't green, or animated, so I think I came out ahead," Deadpool said happily.

"What's wrong with green?" Carol snapped, before cursing herself for her defensive reaction – if nothing else, she could feel the Green Lantern Ring perk up at that. It was like having a needy younger sibling around her neck.

"Well, some of us can pull off the Green Lantern look, and some of us can't," Deadpool said casually.

Carol froze. "What?"

"You're the latest model, and dating the hero of the main story – Mister Tall, Dark, and Depressingly Not Legal. Which, since this story has been going on for over eight fucking years and only managed to cover one, and this is my first fucking appearance – and even then, only as a secondary or tertiary character in a single fucking side-story – is actually kind of disturbing."

"... You're saying my life is fiction?" Carol asked in disbelief.

Deadpool shrugged. "Yeah," he said, as if this was self-evident.

"You actually believe that," she said sceptically.

"Your naivety is even cuter than your honeybuns and your boyfriend's Buffy obsession. I don't think it. I know it."

Carol stared at him, far more unnerved than annoyed, and too disturbed to bristle at the faintly condescending tone.

"Okay, either you made a very lucky guess or two, or you have access to a scary amount of information," she said. "Considering my life, I'm going with the latter. How the fuck did you know that?"

"I'm allowed a statutory number of fourth-wall breaks per appearance," Deadpool said, again, as if this was completely normal. "I don't know everything, but I do know enough to be interesting and entertaining. Just think of me as a hotter, sexier, and infinitely more flexible Doctor Strange."

Carol's mind rebelled at the thought. Considering some of the mental images it had played host to without incident, this was saying something.

"So, let's say that this is true," she said. "Because, let's face it, my life sometimes feels like a bad soap opera anyway… what kind of sadist would come up with my life? Or, worse, my boyfriend's?"

"A fucked up one. Who's also a masochist," Deadpool said cheerfully. "So, you know, a writer. Seriously, they're all like that."

"'e bein' helpful?" Gambit asked, sauntering over.

"He's telling us that our lives are fictional and meaningless," Peter said.

Gambit raised an eyebrow.

"Oh, really? You're doing the eyebrow thing? I swear, everyone in this goddamn story does that. Even I do that, sometimes, and I don't even really have eyebrows," Deadpool complained. "Also, I would say that this story is priceless. Which doesn't mean it's worthless."

"Are you giving us life lessons now?" Peter asked, confused.

"Well, if it'll get me more appearances, I don't see why not," Deadpool said, shrugging. "I can spout meaningless clichés with the best of them."

Carol stared at him. "You're genuinely nuts, aren't you?" she said slowly.

"You say crazy, I say enlightened," Deadpool said, and spread his free hand. "Just give me a cushion to sit on and gather round, my young friends. Guru Deadpool has much love, and wisdom, to impart."

"'ow about starting wit' how t' get y' t' leave us alone?" Gambit asked evenly. "If y' grow limbs back, ain't likely I can keep y' tied up easy, an' I ain't one f'r murderin' in cold blood, no matter what de Boudreaux may have tol' –"

"The Boudreaux?"

"… de people who hired y'?" Gambit said, uncertain in the face of apparently honest puzzlement.

"Nah," Deadpool said. "That was uh… 'the Green Man'."

"The Green Man," Peter said sceptically.

Gambit exhaled. "Woodrue."

"Honestly, I just called him plant guy," Deadpool said, shrugging.

"He does sound like he'd be working down at a garden centre," Peter agreed. "Or, you know, selling weed out of a van."

"That would be part of what 'e'd be doing," Gambit said evenly. "Though de stuff 'e sells ain't half as harmless as a bit o' weed."

"The 'roided up psychos kind of gave me that impression," Peter said.

"Yeah," Deadpool said. "People who're high are usually at least good for some conversation, you know? I mean, I had a contract on a guy once, and he was stoned out of his fucking mind, and, well, I couldn't just leave him like that."

"You didn't hurt him?" Peter asked hopefully.

"Not even a little bit," Deadpool said. "We sacked out with a couple of packs of nachos and some of the best LSD north of Vermont, and watched Scooby Doo. Then he went to sleep and I shot him."

Peter stared at him in horror.

"What? He didn't feel a thing! And I got to score some fantastic drugs while waiting for my ride home."

Carol, meanwhile, had tuned out and was pulling up the contacts on her phone. There was too much going on that she didn't know. Eventually, the number rang.

"Hello?"

"Hey grandma," Carol said, in as breezy a tone as possible while in an unpleasant cellar surrounded by a twitchy hemi-semi-demi-vampire, an artificial mutant super-thief, and a mercenary who was probably both insane and unkillable. Oddly enough, that was quite breezy – Carol had led a strange life. "Funny thing, but I'm in New Orleans, and, well... I may have run into Gambit again. On a totally unrelated note, have you heard of a criminal called 'the Green Man' and a merc named Deadpool?"

There was a moment of dead silence on the other end. "Carol, what have you done now?"

Carol winced. "Well, I may have got in the middle of a gang war."

"... What."

"It wasn't my fault, I swear. Blame the Green Lantern Ring, it turned up a couple of hours ago," Carol said defensively.

"Carol, you should have told me, immediately."

"I gave my roommate your number and told her to ring you or text you or whatever," Carol said.

"My work phone doesn't accept calls from unknown numbers."

"Oh. I didn't know that."

"Well, I don't suppose you can be expected to," Alison said with a long sigh. "Carol, I'm going to give you directions to the nearest SHIELD station and tell them to expect you. They're already preparing for trouble. You, and Gambit, and whoever else is with you – not Deadpool – will go there and sit tight until I come down and sort this out."

"Yeah, I can't do that."

"Carol."

Carol took a deep breath. "Grandma, the Ring can't exactly talk, but it's being pretty explicit about its warnings," she said seriously. "It got me involved, it got Peter Parker – remember, the kid who got bitten, and, you know, almost went full vamp? – involved, and it even let me bully it into finding Gambit for me. For whatever reason, it is desperate. It's even putting up with me not actually using it. Has it ever done that before? I don't think so."

She sighed. "I don't know what's going on. Something big may be happening. Do you think it would do that if it had any another option? I really doubt it. Besides, if things get hairy - hairier - I'll use it, and even you couldn't make me safer than that."

There was silence on the other end of the line as Alison was clearly mulling over the point. "Fine," she said abruptly. "Is Deadpool with you?"

"Yeah."

"Put me on speakerphone," Alison said, in a tone that brooked no argument. Carol, wisely, did not even try.

"Sure. You're good to go."

"Right. Hello, Wade."

"Alison?!" Deadpool said, sounding genuinely delighted, shooting a look at Carol. "I knew you looked familiar!" Then, he waved at the phone. "Hey, long time no speak!"

"And for good reason. I know you're not good at keeping things brief -"

"I know, I can go all night. Vanessa says it's one of my better qualities."

"It's not like she's spoilt for choice. Now: Jacksonville."

"I remember. That was the one and only time I saw your ass in SHIELD spandex. Near-religious experience, I'm telling you. I mean, maybe I stayed a little too close to the explosives while I was getting a proper look..."

"You were, and you deserved what you got."

"Probably. But the coma and the full body cast were totally worth it."

"How flattering. Oh, if you try any funny business with my granddaughter and somehow survive the experience, I will turn you into a one-man human centipede."

"I would never! I mean, she looks like she'll eventually be even hotter than you –"

"I'm not even 16 yet, asshole," Carol growled.

Deadpool paused and stared at her, before looking her up and down. "Wait, really?"

"Yeah."

"You don't look it. Or sound it. Or act it. Like, at all."

"And yet."

"Alison, is she fucking with me?"

"No," came the curt answer. "She isn't. Hence the centipede."

Deadpool stared at Carol again, then shook his head. "Fuck me, your family grows up fast," he said, before shuddering. "God, now I feel creepy."

At three identically sceptical stares, he looked defensive. "What? I'm a hired killer, but I have standards. Is that so surprising?"

"Yes," Carol said bluntly.

Deadpool cocked his head. "You are an adorable little cynic. You know, you really are just like your grandma –"

"Wade," Alison growled. "For once in your life, try and extend your minuscule attention span to more than five seconds."

"Yes ma'am. Sorry ma'am."

"Better. Now, Jacksonville. You owe me a marker. I'm calling it in."

"Oh, come on! Really? Now?!" the mercenary demanded, throwing his hands up in the air.

"Yes, Wade. Now."

"Ugh, fine. You want me to ditch the contract?"

"Yes. And bodyguard my granddaughter, and whoever she has with her, against whatever they come up against."

"That is more than one marker," Deadpool pointed out.

"I know where Ajax is. Do this right, and I'll get you there, under the radar, no questions asked. I'll throw in an extraction, too, if for once in your life you can actually be discreet."

"Deal."

"Awesome," Carol said, breaking in. "Grandma, what can you tell us about a guy called Jason Woodrue? He also goes by 'the Green Man', has a neat line in enhancers – like, not super soldier level enhancers, but definitely human plus, and unable to feel pain."

"An' he's answerin' to someone," Gambit put in. "Someone who scares 'im."

There was a sigh and a sound of brisk typing.

"Jason Woodrue, biochemist and botanist," Alison said after a few moments. "Had a couple of brushes with the law for some unorthodox and unethical experimentation, and he was a suspect in an attempt to recreate 'Three-Eye'."

"'Three-Eye'?"

"A magically created drug that opens the third eye, the Magical Sight, of whoever takes it," Alison said. "It was manufactured by would-be drug lord and powerful sorcerer Victor Sells, a.k.a. the Shadowman, as part of his play to become kingpin of Chicago a few years ago. The official story is that his equipment started the fire that burned his house down, taking him with it. Unofficially, he was tracked and confronted by Harry Dresden after having tried and failed to kill him."

"You gonna come at the King, you better not miss," Carol muttered.

"Indeed," Alison said dryly, disregarding the fact that she shouldn't possibly have been able to hear that. "In any case, there were attempts to recreate it, and Woodrue was almost certainly one of the participants. While those attempts failed, he's believed to have gained access to magical materials and contacts in the process."

"So, not a wizard," Carol said.

"Going by our files, it's extremely unlikely that he could do anything more than light a candle, if that," Alison said. "The belief was that he had enough magic to make potions and alchemy work, but that doesn't take anything more than the most basic magical spark. However, our files don't say that he's got anyone backing him. Gambit, are you sure about that?"

"My source is solid, ma'am," Gambit said. "An' I've done a bit o' diggin' myself. 'til about two years ago, Woodrue wasn't much more than a glorified meth cook. Even last year, he was jus' a designer drug dealer. Now? 'e's payin' superhuman hitters t' try an' take me out, an' he's got a small army of super-drugged cannon fodder."

"Mmhmm," Alison said thoughtfully. "And our assessments have him as being about nine months from dominance in the New Orleans underworld, a year before it's statewide."

"Six an' eight," Gambit said, with absolute certainty.

"Six and eight," Alison conceded. "Yes, he must have got a backer, mustn't he?" There was the sound of drumming fingers, which abruptly stopped. "Oh. Oh damn. That idiot."

"Grandma?" Carol asked, worried.

"He's going to try and crack Pegasus," Alison growled. "And if the Ring's worried, then he's probably bloody close to succeeding."

Gambit swore, fluently.

"I'm guessing that's bad," Carol said.

"If most of the Avengers weren't otherwise occupied, I'd have stuffed them on Quinjet and sent them to you."

"Okay. That's. Um. That's bad," Peter said.

"Grandma," Carol began slowly.

Alison sighed. "Your mother is going to kill me."

"You're going to let me investigate?" Carol asked, surprised.

"Do I have any conceivable method of stopping you?" her grandmother asked, raised eyebrow audible.

"… well, now that you put it like that…"

Alison snorted. "If the Ring is as desperate as you say, then something is clearly up," she said. "Either something that can't wait, or something that it can provide an insight into, given that it sealed Pegasus up in the first place. That means that odds are excellent that you'll get involved anyway, and even better that you'll need to be involved in some capacity, even if it's from behind several metres of blast shielding. Likewise, if it's willing and able to teleport Mr Parker into your room in the first place, then it'll probably do it no matter how many times I try to have him sent away. In fact, it'll probably do the same to you."

"Good point," Carol conceded. "Several, even. Also, you're being remarkably understanding about this."

"Understanding, no. Pragmatic, yes. Short on options, definitely. Why do you think I was desperate enough to enlist Deadpool?"

"Hey! I provide a bespoke service!"

"You once performed a hit on an Emirati Prince while dressed as a giant hotdog."

"Was that a disguise?" Peter asked, eyes wide.

"Nah. My good costume was in the wash."

"And your bad costume?"

"I'd run out of duct tape."

"Part o' me is fascinated," Gambit remarked. "The rest o' me, on de other hand, knows better."

Deadpool narrowed his eyes at the mutant thief. Somehow, and (like many things involving Deadpool), against all logic, his mask conveyed this perfectly.

"You are not one to talk about fashion, thrift store Neo."

Carol smirked. "He has you there," she said.

Gambit smirked back. "Well, cherie, forgive me f'r not noticin'," he said. "'cos I ain't had any complaints so far. Present company included."

Carol blew a raspberry at him.

"Children," Alison said dryly. "Behave, please."

Carol flushed. "Right," she said, and coughed. "So, I've got the go-ahead."

"For recon only," Alison said. "Though rest assured that when everything does inevitably go sideways, you will have back-up. I've notified the SHIELD station to be on standby. Most of the Avengers are busy –"

"As usual," Carol grumbled under her breath.

"– because they all have responsibilities quite apart from bailing you and your peers out of trouble," Alison finished pointedly. "Responsibilities that, now, are rather more pressing. However, Captain Rogers and the newly minted Agent Lupin are being read in on the situation. They're in Washington, and they'll be with you in a couple of hours."

"Wait, you had this prepped?" Carol said, startled.

"Darling, I prepped them as soon as you said the words 'Green Lantern Ring'," Alison said dryly. "Part of conceding to the inevitable is preparing for the fallout."

"… that's fair. So, what kind of mess might – okay, let's face it, are – we be about to walk into? Like, on a scale of Easter to London, how screwed are we?"

Alison told her.

It was not promising.

OoOoO

"So, run this by me again," Carol said, in the shotgun seat of a hot-wired SUV. "We're getting some extra intel on Pegasus, from some kind of weird folk healer contact person. Despite the fact that my grandma was involved last time it went nuclear, and is Deputy Director of SHIELD."

"There's no harm in getting some on the ground knowledge," Deadpool said sagely. "What?"

The other three were staring at him.

"You said something that… that made sense," Peter said, stunned.

"I was black ops for fifteen years, and I've been a merc for most of the last ten," Deadpool said casually. "I know stuff. Also, Alison called in a marker, and I take my markers seriously." He prodded Carol on the shoulder. "Especially when a relative of the person who has that marker is involved. That means that I'm obligated to actually act semi-seriously."

"Semi-seriously?" Carol said dubiously.

"I'm still the comic relief," Deadpool said, shrugging. "Besides, I respect your grandma."

Carol glared. "You were eulogising her ass."

Deadpool shrugged, entirely unrepentant. "It is an ass worthy of eulogising."

"In front of me?"

"Hey, that is an ass to be proud of, even if you somehow don't inherit it – which isn't likely. I mean, your uncle has it, and I hear your cousin does too."

"Since when do you know what my uncle's ass looks like?" Carol asked, knowing as she spoke that she was going to regret the answer.

"East Berlin in '88. Officially, it didn't happen. Unofficially, there may have been a swimming pool of black-market Ben & Jerry's, half a dozen Stasi agents, and a lot of vodka."

"What."

"In my defence, the karaoke was totally a necessary part of our cover. But we made an excellent Abba. We didn't even need drag – and the Hellfire Club does excellent drag. I mean, most of it is leather, and sometimes it's outlived at least three previous owners, but it's high-quality stuff."

"What."

"Ask your uncle. He's got the trick knee to remember it by. I'd do it, but he said he'd shoot me if he ever saw me again…"

"That don't seem like it'd bother you," Gambit put in.

"… into orbit. Trust me, re-entry stings like a bitch."

"Could he do that?" Peter asked, curious. "Send you into space, I mean?"

"Put it this way," Deadpool said, slinging an arm around Peter's shoulders. "You know her? You know the crazy stuff that she is almost certainly capable of?"

"Um. Some of it?"

"Imagine someone with that kind of brain, thirty years more practice, black ops training, and the resources of a USAF General. Does that give you an answer?"

Peter swallowed. "Yeah. It does."

"Good. Because that answer's totally wrong."

"Really?"

"Oh yeah. It's way worse than that."

"I feel like I should be offended," Carol said vaguely. "Why do I feel like I should be offended?"

"Sometimes," Gambit said sagely, guiding the car down the shadowed and rickety paths into the edge of the bayou. The road was lit only by headlights, which had limited range on the twisting road, and pale moonlight that cast everything beyond the headlights' actinic glare in shades of silvery and darkest grey, but he drove with expert skill. "It best not to ask." He spun the wheel smoothly as a house came into view. "Besides, Deadpool is right."

"About what?" Carol asked warily.

"Ground-level knowledge is important," Gambit said. "Besides – it on de way."

"I see," Carol said, eyeing the house as they closed in. It was wooden and somewhat ramshackle, with trees growing up around it, ivy crawling up the walls, and a general air of returning to the wild, like a dog going feral. "So, we stop off for tea in the woods with Baba Yaga."

"Oh, can we not introduce another witch?" Deadpool complained. "There are way too many characters in this story already. I'm the entirely arbitrary limit."

Carol shot him a funny look in the rearview mirror. "That was a joke," she said. "I don't think she's actually Baba Yaga."

"Well, it's either her or Agatha Harkness, and I am not in the mood for an A Capella villain song."

"You are so weird," Carol said, shaking her head.

"Who's Baba Yaga?" Peter asked, bemused.

"Witch, Russian folklore," Gambit said, as he pulled up. "Known for iron teeth, eating people, an' a house wit' duck feet. I'm surprised y' know it."

Caarol shrugged. "My boyfriend speaks Russian, has magic powers, and just about everyone from folklore, ever, trying to kill him. I pick things up. Some is trivia, some is intel, and some ends up being both."

Deadpool eyed her. "And you think I'm weird?"

Carol didn't dignify that with a response.

OoOoO

As it turned, the 'weird folk healer contact person', better known as Doctor Vivian Lake, gave off two impressions.

The first was not overly favourable. Her house was… well, Carol had seen messes and made messes, but this was a prize-winner. Almost every surface was covered in potted plants, which seemed to be staging a takeover, swallowing carelessly tossed books and sheets of notepaper covered in scribbled formulae that was either magical or scientific or both, and strewn jars, mugs, and beakers containing what could be experiments in progress or crusted, mouldy coffee.

Everything was lit by lavender scented candles, which cast a comforting, warm and buttery glow over all present. Oh, and there was a glass cabinet containing several spiders, on top of which sat a small hand-knitted doll with a tuff of dark brown hair, a coat, and black headband of sorts. Peter had been seated next to it and was consequently eyeing it with some unease.

This, and a white lab coat and horn-rimmed glasses over a fluffy psychedelically coloured jumper and ripped jeans, while grey-streaked black hair was held in a messy ponytail by a mauve scrunchy, gave her an air of vaguely hippie-ish middle-aged eccentricity. Furthermore, it didn't leave Carol with much faith in her abilities to provide anything useful.

And yet… she tried not to judge books by their cover these days. Part of it was manners, part of it was because more often than not it was a matter of life or death (and wasn't that a desperate comment on her social life). Dotty though she might seem, Gambit had brought them to her for a reason, and Gambit was one of the best judges of people's capabilities that she'd ever met. If he thought there was more to Dr Lake than there seemed, then that probably was the case.

Even without that, though, there was something about her that kept nudging Carol's opinion from 'kook' to 'kooky but smart, handle with care'. It might have been the sharp look in her ice-blue eyes, or the way that she noted and utterly dismissed the presence of a heavily armed mercenary in ruptured and stained red and black spandex.

As it turned out, this instinct was right. Doctor Lake was formerly an affiliate of SHIELD. More than that, she was a consultant who had worked on Project Pegasus and had set up shop both literally and figuratively not too far from the old site to keep an eye on it.

"What made you think it needed watching?" she asked.

"Alan Scott laid down some very solid wards, conjured guardians and all," Dr Lake explained, her accent clipped and, if Carol's estimate was right southern English… sort of. It sounded a little bit like Strange when he was playing with his accent, though hell if she knew where the other bit of it came from. "And the White Council came by and did their own work. But nothing is perfect, and Pegasus was hard to contain. It nearly killed Alan Scott to do it. And the thought of what lies within is... tempting, to some."

"The White Council warded it? Not… whoever runs the wanded stuff in the US?" Carol probed.

That got her a raised eyebrow and a look of reassessment (clearly, she thought with some grim vindication, she wasn't the only one with preconceptions to overcome), followed by a pointed question. "You know the difference?"

Carol smiled thinly. So, this woman wanted to test her? A year ago, that would have annoyed her, left her impatient to get on with more important things (and truth be told, it still did). But she'd learned patience (grudgingly).

"There's wanded and wandless," she said. "It's an in-born tendency, like being left or right-handed. Each has its benefits – wanded's easier to use, quicker to learn, but needs a special wand, Deadpool stop laughing or I will kick your junk up between your teeth, while wandless is harder to use and longer to learn, but you can make your own gear and don't technically need any, and if you're strong enough, you live way longer too. Like being handed, you sometimes get people who can use both to one degree or another."

Lake eyed her, then nodded slowly. "You're one of Alison's girls, aren't you?" she said. "Alison Carter, you're a relative, aren't you? I'd heard one of hers had gone into SHIELD."

Peter opened his mouth and stopped at a glance from Gambit.

"Actually," Deadpool began cheerfully.

"I'm involved in the family business, yes," Carol said, cutting him off. "Not necessarily formally, but I picked up a thing or two. She pointed me at Pegasus, actually. Filled me in on a lot of it."

"Comin' here was my idea," Gambit said, and smiled charmingly. "'cos I just knew that y', mah dear Doctor Lake, would know things dat even de Deputy Director o' SHIELD don' know. Things that are worth hearin'."

Lake snorted in amusement. "You always were a flatterer, Remy," she said.

"Flattery is exaggeration an' hyperbole," Gambit said, flicking a dismissive hand. "Wit' y', de truth is remarkable enough."

"Out of interest, has he always been like this?" Peter interrupted.

"In some universes he's worse," Deadpool confided.

Gambit rolled his eyes. "Enough from de peanut gallery," he said, and leaned forward, expression serious. "Doctor, ah may 'ave a reputation as a thief, a trickster, an' a rogue, an' most of it is well-earned. But I ain't lyin' about this: somethin' is goin' down at Pegasus tonight."

Lake raised an eyebrow. "How do you know?" she asked. "You're a resourceful young man, Remy, but you never moved in the kind of circles that talked about Pegasus. It's something that even SHIELD likes to forget." Her gaze shifted to Carol, then to Peter and Deadpool. "Then again, you have fallen into quite a motley company, haven't you? Including the daughter of one of the most powerful women in SHIELD, a woman who was there when Pegasus fell." She eyed Gambit. "Which still doesn't explain how you're so sure about this."

Carol sighed and fished out the Ring, which promptly began to glow. "Because of this," she said.

Lake's eyes widened in astonishment. "Is that?" she whispered.

"Yeah, it is," Carol said, slipping it away again.

"I'd heard rumours about a new Green Lantern, and I'd seen the pictures from the Battle of London, but even so…" Lake trailed off. "Well, if you're anything like your grandmother, you're a good pick. Stubbornest woman I've ever met, and one of the stubbornest individuals, full stop." She eyed the neck of Carol's shirt. "But you're not wearing it?"

"If I can avoid it, no," Carol said. "Look, I'm sorry, but we're on the clock here, and I don't know how much time we have – the Ring just turned up and roped us in. What can you tell us?"

Lake eyed her for a moment, then nodded. "The magical defences on Pegasus are still strong," she said. "Not as strong as when Alan Scott was alive, but the basic ones he laid down have more or less outlived him. Additionally, a member of the White Council's leadership lives around here, and she laid down some more. She checks on them every now and then, though less so in recent years, given the Council's troubles. Most of the technological traps have been sprung or disabled, however."

"Woodrue," Gambit said after a moment, grimacing.

Lake nodded. "He was a student of mine, for a while," she said. "Brilliant bio-chemist, with an interest in the arcane, and some natural talent. Hardly a Council class Wizard, but a very competent alchemist and potion-maker. And as it happens, Pegasus is quite attractive to someone like that."

"Magic based super-soldiers, my grandmother said," Carol interjected.

"That wasn't the half of it," Lake said grimly. "All sorts of biomancy went on in there. Including cultivation of plants, especially magical ones and hybrids. Approximately 25% of all drugs used in the modern West are plant derived, and that's just scratching the surface of the possibilities." She touched pot with a plastic screw-top. "This, for instance, is a form of Green Tea. Normal Green Tea, from the leaves of Camellia Sinensis, has been known to improve endurance, fat-burning rates, and reduce cell damage. This version, well."

She smiled faintly, and drew a slim wand of hawthorn wood. "As you might have realised, I am something of a witch. Not a very good one, I must say, but I've always had a talent for potions. That translates quite well to science, and back again, and even better to mixing the two. In this case, two cups a day will quickly triple your endurance, double the efficiency of your metabolism, and increase your strength by half." She shrugged. "You need to actually exercise to get the best effects, of course. If you just want stimulants, well…"

She tapped another pot. "I have those too."

"You can do all that with tea?" Carol asked sceptically.

"And put cancer into remission, with a mistletoe based one," Lake said casually.

"Oh, that is –"

"No, it makes sense," Peter said suddenly. "I mean for the Green Tea, when you account for the effects of the catechins –" He stopped, and frowned. "Is this the base for what was powering those thugs?"

"Thugs?" Lake asked, eyebrow raised.

"A bunch of Woodrue's bully boys, de Patches," Gambit supplied.

"If they managed to refine the enhancers, add in adrenaline boosters, pain suppressants, like, like, like they're overclocking the body," Peter said. "They could get way more bang for their buck."

"That sounds like the opposite of refined," Carol said, but puzzled, rather than disputing.

"It is," Peter said. "But basic stimulants aren't hard to come by; I mean, speed, meth, even stuff like alcohol – okay, alcohol's not technically a stimulant, but in smaller doses it has some stimulant effects. But they've only got so much to work with, the body as it is, but if you used that tea or something similar as a basis to improve the body and stabilise the stimulants, make them last, even heal faster…"

"More bang f'r y'r buck," Gambit said.

Lake nodded. "You've got a good mind," she said thoughtfully. "Not many would put it together that fast. As it is, yes, I believe that's exactly what he's done. With a few magical twists: a little brew with some Lady's Mantle, for instance, binds it all together. It has certain alchemical and healing effects when prepared properly, you see. When not…" She shrugged. "Well, frankly, I doubt that many of the Patches last long enough to notice."

Carol raised an eyebrow at this apparent callous response, but held her peace. Maybe it was something to do with the lady's grudge against her former student.

"I sell other things, of course, some home-grown, some developed and originally harvested from Pegasus," Lake said. "Ayahuasca, for those looking for answers within or without, a tincture of gorse and cinquefoil for those looking to talk around their dearly beloved and relight their fires…" She smirked, leaving in no doubt to any but a puzzled Peter what she meant. "So to speak."

"I'll take one of those and one of the Green Tea to go," Deadpool said.

Everyone stared at him.

"What? I've got super stamina, my wife doesn't. And though I may have the skin of a baked potato, I have the mushy, gooey heart of one too. After you add butter. Or cheese. Or something similarly creamy in texture, anyway."

"That is more than I ever wanted to know," Carol said. "Okay, so Woodrue's perverting your lessons to become the Kingpin of New Orleans?"

"There's precedent," Lake said, shrugging. She didn't sound particularly concerned, Carol thought critically. "A powerful practitioner called the Shadowman tried something similar, making a drug called 'Three-Eye' –"

"That opens the Sight, and he got fried by Harry Dresden for being a murdering psycho, yeah, we know," Carol said. "Sorry to push, but he's going for Pegasus, right?"

"Pegasus was abandoned quickly, and there wasn't time to clean up afterwards," Lake said bluntly. "A lot of plants will be growing wild there, a lot of animals that were experimented on, experiments that were left undone… things with unusual powers and data with untold knowledge lie within."

She folded her arms.

"Of course, while there's plenty of value, there's plenty to protect it. And I'm not talking about the wards. The plants alone are dangerous enough. Some, he's harvested for his own purpose: 'mad honey', for instance, which creates delirium, and full body paralysis; the Ivory Funnel Mushroom that makes those who consume sweat, cry, and salivate into helpless puddles – sometimes, dead ones; the so-called 'Suicide Tree', Cerbera Odallam, whose 'othalanga' fruit is a deadly poison that is hard to detect if you don't know what you're looking for and most effectively concealed by strong spices; Angel Trumpet, the so-called 'hypnotising herb', easily used by anyone with even a drop of magic and more than half a brain to ensnare and enthral; and the Machineel tree. The so-called 'death apple'. The fruit kills, even the slightest bit of sap in raindrops alone blisters skin and damages metal paint, and even the smoke from the burning trees will burn your eyes and right down your throat."

She swept a serious gaze over them, the room seeming to darken as the candles burned lower, her words rolling over them in an almost hypnotic cadence at odds with their horrifying content.

"The Giant Hogweed oozes a thick sap that sticks to human skin, and on contact with sunlight, it starts a chemical reaction that burns through the skin and tissues, leading to necrosis and the formation of massive, purple lesions that incredibly, may last for several years. Even a minute amount of sap will cause permanent blindness upon eye contact, though a potion with a rue base can fix that. The Gympie-Gympie tree produces a poison so painful that it has been compared to hot acid and some have committed suicide from the pain. The New Zealand Tree Nettle; hard to harvest, or it'd be used more – in high doses, it causes polyneuropathy, nerve degeneration at best, death at worst. Even in low doses, it's exceptionally painful for days after contact. A properly sized dose can neatly trap someone in their own body. And those are just the mundane plants."

"What about the… not mundane ones?" Carol asked slowly. "Also, why is all this horrible stuff growing here?"

"Some had potentially useful properties," Lake said, and smiled thinly. "I'll leave you to decide what most of those might be. On a good day, that included developing counters to toxins." She waved a hand. "There were, and no doubt still are, plenty more benevolent plants there; Moly, excellent for countering magic, Sanjeevani, good for otherwise mortal wounds and a surprising number of poisons…" Her gaze went distant, and she twirled her wand idly. "And apples."

"Apples?"

"Magical apple trees," Lake said, coming back to herself, but still twirling her wand idly. "Those were my contribution, I must say. They reminded me of my youth. And they're magically very versatile, both in fruit and wood. There were others, too, trees that wandmakers would usually kill to get their hands on. We grafted a number of fruits onto those trees, actually, with mixed success. Some of the properties were quite remarkable. They're something else that would be worth Woodrue firing up the cannon fodder."

"Cannon fodder?" Peter asked, half indignant, half uncertain of speaking out of turn, his words caught in an unexpected yawn. Carol blinked at him, then blinked again, frowning. She was tired too. It had been a long night already; Gambit was clearly feeling the side-effects, as was Deadpool, for all his claims of stamina.

"Oh yes, cannon fodder," Lake said carelessly. It was then that Carol noticed, with a cold trickle down her spine, that for all that her pose was artless, her wand was twirling in some very specific patterns. And while she was no witch, she knew magic when she saw it.

She surged up from her chair, hand lashing out in a blur to snatch the wand, subdue the witch, to demand what the hell was going on… or at least, that was what she intended. In actual fact, she simply lurched to her feet and stumbled a step forward, before a flick of Doctor Lake's wand sent her flying back into her chair, over it, and into the floor. As she struggled up again, propping herself up on suddenly leaden arms, she saw Deadpool fumbling with one of his swords, and then, to her disbelief, managing to stumble forward and impale himself on it.

"Ow."

Lake raised an eyebrow at him, then flicked her wand at Gambit, wrapping him in thick conjured rope despite the fact that he was too dazed to even sit straight. Then, she let out a yelp of pain and stumbled, as a chair flew straight into her. Peter, clearly, had not been as drowsy as he looked and was the picture of terrified determination as he scrambled for something else to throw, adrenaline at least for now staving off sleep – the candles, that most have been it, Carol thought woozily, fumbling for her shield – and not finding it. Or at least, not before Lake, her eyes wild with rage, hurled a white bolt of magical power that sent Peter flying into the glass spider cabinet, bringing both him and it down to the floor with a horrendous crash.

That sight sent a surge of rage through her, but that wasn't enough either, even as the edge of her shield swept up towards Lake's wand-hand like an axe, seeking to disarm her. Instead, the woman merely flicked that fucking wand, and Carol found herself frozen, helpless.

"Not bad," the older woman said. "Going straight for my weapon, knowing that if I was disarmed, then even a drugged super soldier would have the advantage." She smiled as Carol's eyes carefully did not widen. "Good lack of reaction – Alison did teach you well, didn't she? But not well enough." She nodded at Gambit. "You trust that one, don't you? Or at least, you trust his judgement. It's good, I'll give you that, very good. He's a dangerous young man, is our Remy LeBeau, which is why I took a few precautions when I heard he was back in town."

Carol's eyes flicked over to the doll and Lake followed her gaze, smiling a delighted smile. "Well done," she said, clapping her hands. "Whoever taught you about magic was quite comprehensive. Not many people would identify a poppet at a glance. Yes, that's Remy. It was quite simple to have some pick up a bit of his hair after a fight, then put a little blindfold on the poppet –"

"Meaning he didn't see through you," Carol said. "My boyfriend's a wizard, among other things. I've picked a few things up."

"Well, he didn't teach you enough," Lake said. "Not that I'm complaining. A fight earlier, against a super soldier – oh yes, I know. I knew as soon as you walked in. You very much resemble your grandmother, and I pegged her for what she was years ago. It helped that I was working on a project to recreate the original formula, or create a viable alternative, and studying other extant examples, like the Winter Soldier and the Red Guardian, but mostly… I know what it looks like when someone who's fundamentally more is trying to pass as an ordinary human. Even the best of them have tells, even her."

She smirked at Carol's consternation, then tilted her head and raised both eyebrows as she examined the younger woman's frozen shield.

"Yes, a super soldier with more than a tea-spoon of brains, carrying an enchanted weapon. Asgardian work, if I'm not very much mistaken. The metal is most certainly not of this Earth, and the enchantments… my, my, my, this shield is far more than it seems, isn't it? I haven't seen something like this since I was a girl. I wonder… however did you come by such a treasure?"

"I earned it," Carol growled.

"Well, whoever gave it to you must not have expected much in the way of lateral thinking," Lake said idly. "You're quicker than most, I'll give you that. You figured me out as dear, stupid Jason's benefactor. But too late."

She reached out, down Carol's shirt, and flicked out the Ring, snapping it off its string and closing her hand over it. It flared in what seemed like distress, building heat and brightness, and for a long moment there was a smell of roasting flesh from between clenched fingers. As it was, Lake did nothing more than grit her teeth slightly, and smile a triumphant smile. Eventually, the light dimmed, into something quiescent. Something beaten.

"And all the while," she said softly, studying the Ring. "You ignored the one thing that could have saved you, that could have stopped me in my tracks. Even when you realised what was going on, you still reached for a shield, when you could have had an army. Why the Ring came to you, I'll never understand. Still… who am I to question providence, so long delayed and richly deserved?"

She slipped the Ring, emerald green and dark golden light threading through her ice-blue eyes like the Aurora Borealis, the sight blurring in Carol's dimming sight, and chuckled softly, the sound echoing eerily around the cottage.

"You'll live," Lake said carelessly, summoning equipment into a backpack with idle flicks of her ringbearing hand. The raw reddish-white burn mark on it was fading. "As satisfying as killing can be, it can be more trouble than it's worth. Your grandmother knows you're here, and knows that there's trouble, which rather pushes up my schedule, and I need a distraction. A desire for revenge is a risky thing to inspire; I learned that lesson the hard way, a long, long time ago. Your unconscious bodies, on the other hand, fit perfectly." She glanced at Peter, who had started twitching. With a lurch of horror, Carol realised that one of the spiders had bitten him. "Well. Mostly unconscious."

The backpack shot onto her back and the Ring glowed as the door opened.

"Do give your grandmother my best," she said mockingly.

Carol spun, putting everything she had left into one throw with a single yell of effort, the throw spinning her to the floor and leaving her there. But by then, the shield was gone, shooting from her hand in a blur, screaming through the air like an enraged bird of prey, right towards its target.

It was a last-ditch throw, an act of desperation, counting on speed to beat age-slowed reflexes, and enchanted uru to beat a scheming skull. By all rights and narrative logic – or, as Deadpool might have put it, "classic third act drama, the bit when the hero puts all they've got into one shot and takes down the bad guy, the crowd and/or audience cheers, and 'Eye of the Tiger' starts playing. Or 'Danger Zone'. It depends on whether you prefer lisping or homo-erotica in your Cold War propaganda."

On the face of it, this wasn't that. Instead, it was, also in the words of Deadpool, "Oh yeah, total post-modern fake-out, the lampshade that this is actually gritty reality and it doesn't play by all those nice rules, and says that we're taking ourselves so fucking seriously that we're doing a four-hour four years late Director's Cut of all your favourite heroes being assholes to each other, filmed exclusively in greyscale."

The shield slammed into the wooden door, cutting through it like wax until it embedded itself halfway in, the force of impact slamming it open.

Unfortunately, this was a solid five seconds after Lake had shut it behind her.

Fortunately, Carol thought with satisfaction as her eyes blurred, that conniving bitch wasn't the target.

Yeah, that recon went about as expected. Still, Doctor Lake is going to regret that little bit of mercy, even if her reasoning is sound. In fairness, she really does know from experience why inspiring revenge is a bad idea. Plus, she's wielding one of the most powerful weapons on the planet (and if you knew who she was, you wouldn't be in the least bit surprised she managed to temporarily bend it to her will. Who is she? Not telling. But there are clues) that she knows very well how to use, and behind her are a couple of teenagers, a cracked mercenary who managed to skewer himself, and the one real threat (in her eyes), who's dead to the world.

And even then, there's a whole bunch of wards, guardians, evil plants, and god knows what between them and her objective, which she can neatly circumvent and they can't. Plus, she has minions. What could possibly go wrong? Wait and see…