Ultimate Avenging Alliance Chapter 11 Things to Try Out
Matt ground his teeth, the headache becoming increasingly pointed. The headache had a name, and that name was Deadpool. He hadn't stopped talking for about four hours. He'd spent some time on the strengths and weaknesses of various methods of restraint, with a diatribe on the side about how frustrating adamantium could be, progressing to a lecture on tranquilizers and their side effects. By that point, Matt was desperate enough to bury his head in the blanket and pretend to sleep. Wade kept talking.
Matt really didn't want to know how many pills it took to overdose on rohypnol, nor how many attempts it took Wade to perfect it for his own body weight. Nor did he want to think about why Wade would try it.
"-but for a really surreptitious poisoning you should mock up a food poisoning case, and that's messy," the merc was saying. "Besides, I like to own my kills. I never police my brass, y'know? 'Cause I scratch my symbol on the bullet casings, and I want people to know it. And for that I get labelled 'unprofessional'. Well, that and the occasional gratuitous murder. But I don't usually unalive the guy who hired me. Or maybe it's 'cause of that time I let the target go 'cause he gave me the address of this great taco place? I dunno, I did go back and off him later…"
"Or maybe it's because you never stop talking!" Matt snapped at last. "Can't you just go back to sleep or something?"
"Not tired," Wade sulked.
Matt took in a deep breath, and released it. Too bad he couldn't kill him.
Or could he?
"You done much sparring while restrained?" he asked, a smirk coming to his face.
Wade perked up. "That an invitation?"
Matt let his smirk widen to a grin. "If you're up for it." He bounced to his feet. His training hadn't exactly covered this level of restraint – maybe if Stick hadn't…but that didn't matter – but he could do with a challenge.
Wade also rose. "Don't hold back on me," he requested.
Matt nodded once. "Try not to break anything." He leapt.
As he expected, Wade dodged out of the way of the two-foot kick aimed at his head, but raised his hands to slam his fists down on Matt when he landed rather than preparing to defend himself. Matt let his bound wrists fall around Wade's neck, bringing them both down. Wade struggled, but Matt let the blood pound in his ears, clenched his forearms, and wrenched.
Wade told him not to hold back.
Matt had never snapped someone's neck before.
With alien invasions now a possibility, he might have to one day. The act was easy. The sound was…jarring.
Matt disentangled himself from Wade, and nudged the other man's head back into alignment. There was a slight creak, and then a gentle sort of clicking noise as the damaged tissue rebuilt itself.
The lawyer moved away and curled into his blanket. He knew he'd attempted to hunt down and kill Fisk, and that he didn't exactly regret filing (just nearly dying due to Nobu), but actually striking a lethal blow felt very different. It was probably good that he'd done it to Wade first, rather than his 'first' kill being someone who didn't come back.
Wade started breathing again.
That was what had been so unsettling; the abrupt absence of heartbeat, breath, the thousand-and-one murmurs of a living body. Arteries pushing blood on while veins occasionally shut down valves to prevent backflow, glands all over trickling fluids into the blood vessels and lymph vessels and digestive tract and even in the lungs. Sounds Matt usually discounted beneath heartbeat and breath and any other sounds unique to the individual.
Footsteps approached. Matt uncurled and bounced to his feet. The walls were too think for him to hear anything distinctive but it was best to be ready.
The door opened and Peter stumbled in. Matt grabbed him by the shoulders and led him onto the blanket pile. It felt like he'd also been issued with new clothing.
"Daredevil, that was sooo weird!" Peter slurred. "I think I'm high. Am I high? Everything's reeeeeeally loopy."
"You sound high," Matt confirmed. He didn't have any of the drug related odours he'd learned to pick up on in college when trying to avoid trouble, but his heartbeat was rapid and his breathing hitched.
"Deadpool looks kinda dead," Peter observed, and giggled for no apparent reason. "Know how I met him? He was gonna kill me. But he stalked me for a week first. Tol' me I was such a cute li'l baby boy and such a brave hero – I think he was flirting with me? I mean I like him, but I don't like him. I like Gwen." He sniffled. "I miss Gwen."
Great. Now Matt had a lapful of grieving human-spider hybrid.