Rogue One

The police had set up a perimeter two blocks from Times Square, and the police chief was not happy to see the Avengers.

"Hey," The robust man held up his hands in an attempt to stop them. "Hey, we doan't need yuh guy's help." The Violent Vixen, Wolverine, and Deadpool just breezed by him and the chief's face turned purple. "Jus what do yuh tink you're doin', lady?"

The Violent Vixen turned around and bat her eyes at the man before answering, "My job."

The man tried to get in front of the group, but his short, stubby legs weren't very fast. "Look, lady, I need yuh tuh stop or I'll arrestcha fawh obstrucshun of justice." He threatened, putting his hand on the Kitty's shoulder. Logan turned around and growled as his claws slid out of his knuckles. He glared at the man until the officer backed off and removed his hand.

"Logan." Kitty said softly as she put her hand on his upper arm. His head jerked to look at her and she nodded down to his claws, which he begrudgingly retracted.

"We'll take it from here." Captain America told the man, who was still watching Wolverine with obvious fear. "Kitty, take Deadpool and Logan and go see if you can find the bomb. Find, not touch." He stressed.

"Are you sure-"

Steve cut Tony off by saying, "They can't die and she has the most training for explosives."

Tony pressed his lips together, but remained silent on the matter.

"Tony, Clints, Natasha, Peter, and I will cover the perimeter looking for the Ice Arsonist." Steve continued. "He always stays close by to watch his work."

Kitty Vics nodded and the group split into two.

"If I were an incendiary device," The Violent Vixen started. "Where would I be?" Her eyes fell on the Time Square High Rise, a forty-seven story building overshadowing West 41st Street. "Bingo." She nodded at the building in front of them.

"Fuck," Deadpool cursed. "Why can't they ever want to blow up strip joints?"

"We're never that lucky." Kitty pointed out as they set off for the Times Square High Rise.

Deadpool caught sight of a group of puppies in an alley and instantly deterred from the path. "Ooh, look at the doggies!" He bounced over to the dogs, obviously very excited. Kitty and Logan reluctantly followed the mercenary to find him sitting on the road, two puppies crawling all over his lap. He looked up and whispered, "Can I have a puppy?"

One of the tiny dogs ran over to Logan and started pawing at his leg, demanding to be loved. Kitty bent down and pet the small, gold puppy before saying, "You can't have a dog, Deadpool."

"Why not?" He whined, hugging one closer to him.

"Because you'd never be home to take care of it." She stopped petting the dog, who promptly tried to get Logan's attention again. "And that wouldn't be fair to the dog."

"What if Petey watched it when I was gone?'

"I said no, Wilson." Kitty scolded Deadpool, who started pouting. The happy yipping of a puppy drew Kitty's attention away from the mercenary. She turned and saw Logan holding the puppy that wouldn't leave him alone. "Oh, not you too!" Logan looked up at her like he had been caught stealing a cookie before dinner and Kitty couldn't help but sigh. "Terrorist. Bomb. Ice Arsonist. Any of this ringing a bell?" She asked them as she scratched Logan's puppy behind its ear.

"Fine." Deadpool pouted, giving the fluffy puppy a kiss before he stood up.

Logan set down his puppy and started to walk away when they noticed it following him. "Sit." The puppy cocked its head to the side and sat down. "Stay."

The puppy watched sadly as they walked off without him.

"What are we looking for?" Logan asked Kitty, the only one in the group who had had first hand experience with the Ice Arsonist.

"The Ice Arsonist likes to make his bombs in suitcases or backpacks, surrounded by dry ice, usually in warm environments. That way, when it detonates, the dry ice turns into a gas and…" She made an exploding motion with her hands. "We think he uses remote triggers on them so he can watch from afar but not be injured."

"Okay," Logan nodded. "This building has forty-seven stories and there's only three of us." He pointed out, looking up at the enormous building in front of them.

"My plot senses are tingling." Deadpool stated as they opened up the door. It was very bright and open in the building with office plants and small trees. A desk sat in the middle of the foyer with a blonde woman typing furiously on the computer.

"Hello, can I help you?" The receptionist asked in a bored voice, not even glancing up from her laptop. She had a Donald Trump bobblehead next to a small orchid, and Deadpool couldn't stop himself from tapping it multiple times on the head. The woman huffed and looked up angrily. "Please don't touch that."

"Hi," Kitty beamed, trying to appear friendly while wearing a black catsuit and a gun holster. "We're just visiting and we'd like to have a little tour of the building." Logan smiled, trying to look like an unknowing tourist.

The woman sighed, looking down at her freshly manicured nails. "We only give tours on the first of every month and they're by appointment only. Besides, we definitely don't do tours this late at night." The Violent Vixen glanced up at Logan, then over to Deadpool.

"Ohh…" The Vixen trilled. She pulled out her gun and pointed it at the young woman. "Would you consider an exception?" The woman screamed and Kitty fought very hard to not roll her eyes. "If you've got a panic button, I'd suggest you press it." The receptionist frantically searched her desk before slamming her hand down on a small knob on the underside of the desk, causing a high pitched alarm to ring through the building.

"Please, don't hurt me! I'm getting married next month and we've already put down the deposit-" The young woman stuttered, raising her hands up in the air.

"I honestly have absolutely no desire to hurt you. We just needed the building evacuated." Kitty smiled and winked, terrifying the woman further. Several business men and woman ran out the front entrance, paying no attention to the gun she was pointing at the receptionist. "Now, does the building have a basement or storage closet?"

"No," The woman shook her head, the amount of hairspray kept her short, bleached hair from moving. "I mean, there's a boiler room that we use for storage, but it's on this floor."

"Where is it?"

The woman pointed them in the direction of a large room in the very back of the building that held the heating equipment. When Deadpool opened the door, the heat hit them immediately and a trickle of sweat ran down the Violent Vixen's forehead. They pressed their backs up against the wall next to the door.

"Fuck, it's hotter than Blake Lively in that shark movie. You guys see that one?" Deadpool asked, drawing out of his guns and holding it down by his side.

The Vixen snuck a glance into the boiler room. "She's pretty, but you know blondes aren't really my thing. Salma Hayek, though, I wouldn't find being…Oh, damn, what's the word..." She struggled, trying to think. "Amigovio with her."

"Amigovio?" Logan raised his eyebrows.

"Like a...Friends with benefits thing." Deadpool explained the best he could. "There's no actual translation."

"Anyways, not important. No more distractions. Let's go."

Wolverine's claws slid out of his knuckles and he looked to the Violent Vixen. She nodded, letting him take lead. Deadpool followed right behind her, gun ready to fire.

The heat was almost unbearable in the dim room as Kitty checked behind a large piece of machinery. "Clear."

Logan took the right side, searching for the bomb, but it was Deadpool who found the briefcase hiding behind an air duct.

The group crowded around it and the Violent Vixen's heart skipped a beat. She pressed the mic on her wrist. "Tony, we found the bomb. It's in the boiler room of the Times Square High Rise."

"I take it you're the mad woman with the gun?" Tony's voice rang through Kitty's earpiece and she couldn't help but smile.

"Who else could it be?" She asked, her eyes focused on the bomb. The open, brown suitcase that housed the bomb looked oddly familiar. Kitty shook off the feeling of nostalgia and concentrated on studying the bomb itself. "I'm going to try to disarm it."

"Don't you dare." Tony threatened. "Bomb Squad will be there in five minutes, make sure the building is evacuated then you guys get the hell out of there."

"Sorry, dad. Timer says we've got two minutes, forty-three seconds and counting." She tried to smile and joke, despite their grim situation. "Plus, I actually passed that part of training."

"I didn't." Deadpool informed them loudly and Logan just shook his head.

"That doesn't surprise me." Logan said.

Meanwhile, Tony felt frustration clawing at him. "Kitty, no."

"Kitty, yes." She argued firmly.

"Kitty Stark, you listen to me." Tony growled. "If you stay to disarm that bomb, you will die. And if the bomb doesn't kill you, I sure as hell will."

"Well, then you better say somethin' real pretty at my funeral, Tony Stark, because I'm not goin' anywhere."

Logan watched as the Vixen got down on her knees in front of the suitcase. He could hear the faint sounds of Tony's objections coming from her earpiece before she ripped it out of her ear and clipped it to the top of her corset.

"Looks like it's surrounded by dry ice, like usual." The Violent Vixen carefully examined the wires in the briefcase. She looked up at the two men. "No chance you guys have any extra gloves? Dry ice'll give a nasty chemical burn if touched by bare skin." Both shook her heads and Kitty cursed. "I need to start wearing gloves." She took out the small knife that she tried to sneak into her meeting with Ashley and pressed the button on the side.

"Is that a switchblade? Alright, Vics!" Deadpool high-fived the Violent Vixen, who couldn't help but laugh at his excitement over her illegal weapon. "Hey, who's Keanu Reeves and who's Jeff Daniels?"

Kitty chuckled. "You are sooo Jeff Daniels."

"But I wanna be Keanu Reeves!

"Logan, who's Keanu Reeves from 'Speed', me or Sarge?"

Logan looked Deadpool in the eyes and said, "Kitty's Keanu."

"Told ya so." Kitty returned her focus on the bomb. "Let's see...three wires...each color coded…"

"Isn't it normally two in the movies?" Deadpool asked. The Violent Vixen and Wolverine stared at him. "Ya know, the red wire and the blue wire?"

"This one's got a red and blue, with a purple in the back." She informed them as the timer clicked quietly to two minutes, thirty-one seconds. "Any ideas?"

"Maybe we should listen to Stark," Logan suggested. "Wait for bomb squad."

"We don't exactly have that time," The Kitty reminded them as she looked him in the eyes. "But you two can go if you want, I completely understand."

"No fucking way, Vics." Deadpool said certainly. Logan stayed rooted to the spot and the Vixen turned her attention back to the bomb.

"That's about what I thought. Fuck, I wish this was a mercury switch. Those, I understand. I don't understand this three wire bullshit. Now, red, purple, or blue?" She muttered to herself.

"Dun dun dun da dada, de da doo de da doo de da doo do…"

"Is that the 'Mission Impossible' theme song?" Kitty asked Deadpool, who was still humming.

"What? I thought it was fitting."

Kitty rolled her eyes and set to the task at hand. "Whoever wrote this chapter should die." The red and blue wires looped around before hooking firmly into the device. The purple wire wove around it, but Kitty couldn't tell where or what it was latched to. "Fuck it." She grabbed the purple wire and cut through it, closing her eyes tightly as she did so. After a moment of silence, she opened them to see the clock still steadily counting down. "Dammit." The Violent Vixen cursed.

"Now, now, you didn't really think it'd be that easy, did you?" A voice rang from the door. The man wore a deep blue suit with black armor covering most of his body. His face was fully covered by dark fabric, but it didn't take much to figure who it was. The Ice Arsonist had joined the party.

Deadpool immediately tried to shoot the man, but the Arsonist vanished and rematerialized behind him. He hit Deadpool in the back of the head before dodging an attack by Logan. He disappeared again and Kitty pressed her back to Logan's, looking in every direction for the Arsonist.

"Where the fuck is he?" She demanded, holding her gun by her side. They heard laughter in the hallway outside the boiler room and exchanged glances.

"I'll stay, try to disarm the bomb." The Violent Vixen started to protest, but Deadpool cut her off. "I'll survive it, Louisiana. You won't." Deadpool told the Vixen, who reluctantly nodded.

"Ten cuidado, hombre guapo," She told her friend before turning to Logan. "Let's go."

They ran out of the boiler room to the now empty atrium. The Ice Arsonist was leaning up against the wall, appearing very nonchalant with his arms crossed over his broad chest.

"Finally," He gushed. "I'm glad you could join me." The Violent Vixen tried to push back a feeling of familiarity with his voice to focus on the mission. She pointed her gun at him, but the bullet just barely grazed him as he dematerialized. He showed up behind her, tapping her on the shoulder and punching her face when she turned. She recovered quickly, swiftly elbowing him in the throat before kicking him in the stomach. Logan tried to claw the Arsonist, but they just slashed through the empty air as he disappeared yet again.

"Over here!" He taunted in front of the main doors. Kitty ran towards him, shooting in that direction. The bullets hit the wall and she stood by the door, looking around madly for the villain. She couldn't see Logan either, and the idea of her being alone sent chills down her spine.

"It's showtime, my dahlia," The Ice Arsonist told the Vixen as the blue figure appeared in front of her. Her eyes widened in shock, but before she had time to react, Ashley LeRoux kicked her in the chest. Then, she heard the explosion.

The bomb ticked steadily and Deadpool was sweating inside his suit as he kneeled down and stared at the bomb.

"Holy shit," White cursed in Deadpool's head. "We should've paid more attention in that class."

Deadpool mentally agreed with White as his hand slipped and his gloves touched the dry ice.

"Maybe we should do what Logan said," Yellow suggested. "Check the building for citizens, get the fuck outta here."

"Yeah," Deadpool nodded, standing up. "We'll do that." He ran out of the room and up the nearest staircase.

"Hey! Anyone here?!" He yelled, waiting to hear if anyone responded from that level. When no one answered, he continued back up the stairs. On the fourteenth floor, someone actually answered.

"Who are you?" The young man asked, a large pile of paperwork in his hands. The man was in a nice, tailored suit with a pair of glasses perched on his sharp nose. "You're not supposed to be on this level!"

"Why are you here? Didn't you hear the goddamn alarm go off?" Deadpool asked the man. "There's a fucking bomb in the building!"

The man's face blanched and he looked ill. "I, I thought," He said fearfully. "It was just, just one of those tests. I didn't think, I mean, didn't know it was actually serious."

"It's fucking serious!" Deadpool screamed. "Any minute now, the bomb is going to explode-"

And then,

there was nothing.