Awesome Plan Step Three: lead the feebs to the tower.
warnings: slash. reference to violence. Earth-339 (think of it as 'the Waking Man universe'). spoilers, i guess...for Messiah War. language: pg-13 (primetime tv plus f***).
pairing: Nate/Wade, Stryfe/Wade.
timeline: 3922, two days after Nate and Hope arrive in Earth-339.
disclaimer: marvel owns Cable & Deadpool, disney owns marvel.
notes: 1) (Deadpool &) Cable #25 is possibly the only redeeming issue of Cable's new series. 's all i got to say 'bout that. 2) Stryfe is totally a mani-pedi kinda guy. gotta look nice for flip-flop weather, right? XD being the conquerer of the world doesn't mean you can't have pretty feet. 3) TMI = "too much information." it's what you say to people who share a more than you wanted to hear. 4) the Painted Desert is the area around the Grand Canyon. i've only been once, but it was amazing-i'd never seen a red desert before.
there are some alternate endings to the Hypnic Twitches that start right after this: Daydream Alpha - WM343 (see my Stories list on my profile), Daydream Beta - Untitled by Sarkywoman (sarkywoman (dot) livejournal (dot) com/192466 (dot) html), and Daydream Gamma - On Holding Yourself Hostage by MerianMoriarty (merianmoriarty (dot) deviantart (dot) com/art/CnDP-Hostage-161442105).
Premonition
Getting through the city isn't as easy as Wade hoped it would be.
A little after eleven, just as the radiation levels start to peak for the day, Golden Boy (whom Wade doesn't remember having met in the past, but maybe it was back before his brain was fixed again) notices that they're all being slowly baked.
"Stop," Josh says.
"Don't stop, we're in a hurry," Wade casually contradicts.
"We have to get out of the sun—the radiation is way too high. We're being cooked alive!"
The dorky teleporting villain shrieks and scrambles into the shade.
Wade waves a hand and keeps walking. "You wanna make it to the fortress without an arrow through your nose, you gotta be out during high rads. Even then, the place is a damn maze of alarms and traps."
"Why didn't you just tell us?" asks Laura.
"Because it's not a big deal. Three of us patch up all by ourselves, Nate used to get twice this for breakfast every day, and the rest of you can be fixed by the gene-rearranging kid. Can't say the same about being riddled with holes or cut in half. Keep walking."
They go on with a certain minimum level of fussing and complaining. On the way, he discusses the plan of action: the heavy hitters will distract Stryfe while those with protective abilities sneak in to get Hope. No one questions the split he suggests. He gives directions to one of the fortress' hidden entrances (which he left unlocked a few days ago, assured by Q that it would remain that way), and from there to the armory. He tells them to let the assault team infiltrate first, as cover. No one questions his tactics.
For a moment, he worries that they've all gone bonkers. But no, that look in their eyes is the begrudging sentiment of, 'Well, what choice have we got?'
It's almost one by the time somebody's stupid enough to stray from his footsteps, and he manages to yank Vanisher back by the collar before he can set a toe down on the pulse mine.
"God, you people are dumb," Wade mutters, hunkering down to blow some dust away.
A short distance behind him, he can hear the others shuffle cautiously closer.
Drawing a breath, Wade starts to lecture in his best Ben Stein impression. "This, class, is a pulse mine. It is the big brother of the tectonic anti-vehicle mine. When a moron steps on it, it releases a powerful directed pulse of plasma downward, making an instant tiger pit up to thirty feet wide and eighty feet deep. If said moron is very lucky, the walls of the pit won't immediately cave in on him, and he'll get the chance to see whether he dies of starvation, dehydration, or an infected compound fracture. From now on, let's all walk where Deadpool walks, mm-kay?"
More muttering and grumbling ensues, but at least the rejects fall back into line.
A little while later, Worthington (Wade has never thought of him as 'Warren,' just because it's a weird name and makes him think of bunnies) asks the question that's probably been plaguing them all: "How did it get like this?"
Wade laughs.
Really, there's no other way to respond to a question like that.
"For those just tuning in, two thousand years ago, the hero of our story—that's me—helped Nathan Askani'son Gesundheit, Queen of the Free World, to sketchily rescue a baby from Alaska. And Alaska sucks, so I can tell you it was definitely a rescue. Off they went, in a magical time-travelling bubble, and they were chased by the eeeeevil baby-killing asshole from the future…LUCAS BISHOP! Dun-dun-duuuuuun!"
"Wade, knock it off," Neena sighs.
"Awww, but it was just getting good…"
"So this is Bishop's doing?" Laura asks.
"More or less, yes. He apparently had this brilliant idea that if he made most of the world uninhabitable, Nate and Hope would either die or end up in one of the small, easy-to-search regions that could still support life. Also, there may at some point in time be an entirely incorrect impression that a really, really, really big nuclear detonation was in some way distantly possibly my fault, but it was one hundred and ten percent totally not."
"Awful lot of denial, there," notes Jimmy.
"Maybe I'm tired of saving the world only to have people accuse me of being the one trying to destroy it," he retorts. "I was only very obliquely involved at all, and not in a causal kind of way. Back to the original question—wars. Lots of wars. Most of them Bishop's fault. Three of them nuclear. That's how the world got this way. So let's go kick his ass and lock him up somewhere."
Logan mutters something about wanting to 'gut the traitor' instead, but Nate and the others ignore him.
At length, they manage to make it out of the city without anybody getting shot or blown up, and Wade leads them at a faster pace through the outer stretch of barrens.
"Won't Stryfe be watching?" Jimmy asks when they're low on a ridge about a mile from the fortress.
"Why would he?" Wade replies. "I told you, it's high rad. Nobody comes out in this but me, and I get to come and go whenever I like. He's probably taking a nap, or getting a pedicure or something."
"Arrogant," Nate mutters.
Wade just shrugs. "There's only been one major rebel uprising in all the time I've worked for him. It was a good day. A Tuesday. I didn't keep an exact count, but I'm pretty sure I killed about a hundred and sixty-three people that day. And that was with an arm blown off by the very last piece of plasma artillery in North America."
"Jesus," Josh mutters.
"The threat of my boredom keeps 'em in line now," Wade goes on with a sigh. "And god, I am so fucking bored. We don't have TV anymore—did you know that? We haven't had TV for fucking seven hundred years. Seven. Hundred. Years. You don't wanna know what I do to keep myself entertained."
"I have a feeling I do know," Neena says. "Thanks for sparing us the grisly details."
"So we're just gonna walk up to the front door?" Logan asks loudly, as if he'd like to avoid the subject of Wade's entertainment (even though he could probably stand to partake of some of said entertainment).
"Yep," Wade says, and sets off. "Suicidal complacency, thy name is Stryfe. 'Don't worry, honey, we've got a state-of-the-art security system!' Well, we all know for a fact that the security system is not Wade-proof. Tsk. It's a wonder I didn't depose him sooner. Think of all the obligation-free cookies I coulda had."
"Cookies…" mutters Logan.
"Oh, but think of all the bizarre sexual escapades you would undoubtedly have missed out on," Neena says with feigned cheer (there's a chorus of disgusted noises and awkward throat-clearing).
"To tell the truth, Nate's actually a lot kinkier."
"Than Stryfe?" she exclaims, surprised.
"I know, right? I was totally expecting a 'spank me and let me call you daddy' scenario, but he's pretty vanilla, aside from the odd episode of telekinetic bondage."
"Oh, god, TMI!" yelps Josh.
"Way," agrees Jimmy.
Just as they hit the flat expanse around the fortress, Wade gets a sudden heavy sense of premonition, and his heart misses a beat. He pauses.
It's early afternoon, yellow-orange brightness shifting slightly to the west. The ground is red, like the Painted Desert. A hot breeze brings the scents of dust and stale ocean. For the first time, Wade can see some semblance of beauty to Stryfe's fortress—a jagged, asymmetrical spire, gleaming silver even in the baked ash-haze of this ugly, ruined world.
He's lived there for over half a millennium, knows it like the back of his hand. Fleetingly, the word 'home' brushes through his mind, but it feels alien and meaningless and a little bit wrong.
"Wade?" Nate says gently.
Wade takes a sharp breath through his nose, shakes away the weird reverie. "Yeah. Sorry. Sidetracked. It's not a bad-looking place, you know? Kind of a fixer-upper on the landscaping, maybe, but at least it ain't cluttered with gnomes 'n flamingoes."
"It could use an ornamental bird bath," Josh says dryly.
There's a princess in that tower, and she needs rescuing. Wade starts walking again.
.End.