Life for Wade Wilson was easy.
By day, the tall ex-mercenary could usually be found lying across the couch in his apartment snoozing off his latest hangover in front of whatever teen rom-com was in the Netflix top ten.
And by night, he was just a simple guy, paid to fuck up those shitty enough to earn themselves a gold card.
An easy life.
Sweet and easy.
Wade had no ties. No real baggage, so to speak. And nothing in his life made it remotely complicated.
He had his buddies down in Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls. He was roguishly handsome enough to get laid when he wanted. And he had enough cash in the ol' Pay Pal account each month to pay his rent and get himself nicely drunk at the end of every night.
It was the good life.
Whistling obnoxiously the tune to one of Wham!'s many greatest hits, Wade climbed the stairs that led up to his apartment on the fifth floor. He had a brown paper bag of groceries stuffed under one arm, while with his other free hand, he twirled his set of keys around his finger.
With the winter months having drawn in with a flourish, Wade had today thrown his usual red and black plaid sheepskin jacket over a white vest. But even he had to admit he had been freezing his fucking nipples off out there as he walked back from the store on the corner.
The lean ex-merc was also this week, sporting a large black eye, given to him by a seven foot ex-wrestler named The Elephant. Wade had wondered why no one else had taken up that particular gold card- but hey- now he knew! And this was just one little black eye. Nothing compared to the bruised ribs he had just managed to recover from last month.
In his twenties, Wade had been able to take hit after hit and just jump back up like nothing had happened. But he was now in his veeeery late thirties, and he only had to sleep on the wrong side of his pillow to have a crick in his neck for three months.
But, hey, this life was still as good as a guy like him was ever going to get.
Still whistling Club Tropicana to himself, Wade rounded the corner to hear voices up ahead.
"So it's gonna be six fifty a month an' I'm gonna need half a month upfront. IN CASH," came a raspy New Jersey accent.
Wade recognised it as the voice of his landlord Grasso. Probably one of the shittier people Wade knew, and that was really saying something in this neighbourhood.
"L-like now?" came the voice of a woman up ahead, sounding nervous and exhausted.
The apartment opposite Wade had been vacant for a couple of weeks, after previously being inhabited by a group of crackheads Wade had had very little to do with. After he had attempted to strike up a conversation on a couple of occasions, only to be met with a blank paranoid stare, he had given up finding his bestie amongst the sad and emaciated folks that came and went at all hours.
Wade had not been home for the drugs bust, but had come home the next day to find Grasso yelling at a guy fixing the doorframe, which was splintered and unusable. The only time Wade had ever seen Grasso agree to repair a single thing in this tired and run-down old building in all the time he had been here.
"Of course fuckin' now, Sweeatheart!" yelled Grasso loudly. "What do you think this is? A shelter for the fucking needy? Gimme' a fuckin' break."
Wade rounded the last set of steps up to his landing, to see the back of Grasso's greasy little head and the woman he was talking to.
Immediately, Wade stopped in his whistling, all the breath leaving his body.
She was tall. Almost tall as he was in the black four inch heels she was wearing. With long honey-blonde hair and a beige trench coat.
She had two bags slung over the crook of her arm, one of which she was rifling through hurriedly, head bowed in concentration.
Wade couldn't help but notice that her hands seemed to be shaking.
"I…I only have eighty five right now-" she said, holding out a bunch of rumpled bills, which Grasso immediately snatched from her grasp.
"Well you better get the rest by tomorrow, otherwise you're out," uttered the greasy man, tossing the keys at her unceremoniously, as he counted out the cash, licking his fingers as he thumbed through the money.
He turned and almost walked slap bang into Wade as the merc side-stepped him.
"What the fuck you lookin' at, Wilson?" Grasso snarled.
But Wade offered the oily man a smile as he headed around the corner down the stairs and out of sight. "Always a pleasure, Ron," he called after him.
But there came no response from Ron Grasso.
Wade immediately turned back to the hallway, where the woman still stood, now staring back at him, looking almost alarmed by his presence.
It was then that he saw her face.
Fucking Christ, she was beautiful! With gorgeous green eyes and pink pursed lips.
She looked smartly dressed and way too perfect for a dingy, dangerous part of town like this.
But a sudden gurgle in the woman's arms drew her attention swiftly from Wade. And it was only then, as he climbed the last step and came level with her, did he realise what he had mistaken for a second oversized purse…
…was in fact, a large black infant car seat.
Wade gave a small frown as his eyes landed on a tiny baby, with a short brown tuft of hair wriggling beneath a small white blanket.
Fuck. He could honestly say he had never seen something so innocent and so pure in this neighbourhood before now. And a sudden wave of concern shot through him.
What the fuck were a woman and a baby as perfect as that doing in a shitty place like this?
But the woman swiftly looked his way once more, flashing him a protective scowl, catching him eyeballing the two of them for what was probably far too long in such an enclosed space.
Wade could have fucking kicked himself. Way to make the lady feel fucking threatened, asshole.
Here he was, all six foot two and rough around the edges, sporting a black eye and a jacket he had stolen off a guy he had threatened with a knife and knocked out cold.
Not exactly someone who looked trustworthy.
But Wade was going to prove her wrong.
"Hi," he said, flashing her his widest smile, trying to look approachable. "Wade Wilson. I…uh…I guess we're neighbours."
And with that, he nodded towards his apartment door opposite hers.
But the woman didn't reply. Instead she hurriedly turned away and stuck her new set of keys into the door, shoving it open with her foot.
"Come on, sweetie," he heard her whisper, followed by a hard swallow, as she grasped up a small duffel bag at her feet with great difficulty and headed inside.
Wade called after her, raising his voice.
"You need a-"
But before he could say another word, the door was slammed closed in his face.
"-hand?" he finished in a far quieter voice.
Letting out a bemused sigh, Wade turned toward his own apartment, taking one last look at the door opposite his, as he headed inside.
Not realising, that his easy life was about to get turned on its head…
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