**18.00 GMT-5, 21 June 2000, Unknown, some people have trouble reading the map and it is okay!**
WADE
"Well, this is quite a predicament."
/You could say that…/
(Kinda remind you of our opening movie moves y'know?)
The thought was remarkably calm, considering Wade was currently splayed across the hood of a beat-up sedan, part of a multi-car pileup on a freeway overpass.
The reason for his immobility was a particularly large goon who had impaled himself on Wade's outstretched claws during a frantic dodge, the three metal points now buried deep in the man's ample ass.
The goon was screaming, effectively pinning Wade's arm.
"Okay, first of all, this is not the kind of bonding I had in mind," Wade grunted, trying to shake the wailing man off his claws.
He managed to lift his head, a wide, manic grin spread across his face beneath the mask.
"Oh, hello there!" he wheezed, as a bullet whizzed past his head. "Bet you didn't expect to find me in a spot like this after a four-year timeskip, did you? The author just loves a dramatic re-entrance. So, you wanna see how I get out of this? Of course you do."
Another goon, seeing his colleague's unfortunate situation, charged around the side of the car with a crowbar.
Wade used his free left hand to grab the impaled man's belt, using him as a wobbly, screaming shield.
The crowbar thwacked into the man's back, eliciting a fresh shriek.
"Anyway, you're probably wondering what a growing boy like me has been up to for the last four years. Well, pull up a chair, grab some chimichangas, and let Unca Wade bring you up to speed..."
"So, after the whole Wendigo-Hulk-Shield mixer," Wade began, leaning against the driver before twisting his neck with his free hand, "we got ourselves a nice little farmhouse in upstate New York. Mom absolutely loves it. Like, 'baking pies and planting roses' loves it. Dad pretends to hate the quiet, but I've caught him talking to the goddamn chickens and geese a few times . Don't tell him I told you that."
He gestured vaguely. "Then Fury, that one-eyed bastard, decided we needed an 'education.' Can you believe it? Me, in a classroom with a bunch of normies learning about quadratic equations. It was torture. I was so bored I tested out of two grades just to get it over faster. Damn you, Fury!"
He then gave a mighty heave, finally yanking his claws free with a wet, unpleasant sound.
The large goon stumbled away, clutching his bleeding backside.
"Thanks for taking one for the team, buddy!"
"Speaking of the spook, I started taking solo gigs from him. Don't tell Momma and Pops. They only knew about my merc's gigs. I also got sick of puking my guts out every time I 'ported and having to remember every place or coordinate I wanted to be, so I did some tinkering..." A quick mental image flashed of Wade soldering a complex device into his belt. "...and boom! Smoother rides and more like what Deadpool had in the comic! Opened up a world of possibilities for me. Also make it easier to sneak up anytime I want!"
[FLASHBACK - FOUR YEARS AGO]
/Yeah, this is those kind of fanfic…/
(Wha–! Never been an italian before! fuggetaboutit!)
/ITALIC! It's a flashback you idiot! We are not fucking Italian! What are we? The Punisher?/
"OI I AM NARRATING HERE!!!"
/Not you too!/
"Anyway, First stop: Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children. Let me set the scene for you..."
The bar was dark, smoky, and smelled of cheap beer and the desperation of 50 year old divorced men.
A ten-year-old Wade, with his signature red hoodie and black and red mask, strode up to the counter where a man with a perpetually annoyed expression was wiping a glass.
Wade puffed out his chest, trying to make his voice as low as possible. "I'm here for the mercenary work. Point me to the bullet-sponges and or high-value targets. Anything really, except janitorial jobs. I don't really know how to be neat afterall…"
Weasel didn't even look up. "We don't serve minors here, little girl. Beat it."
Wade froze. "Girl? Again? Do I have 'I'm a girl' tattooed on my forehead? It's the voice, isn't it? I'm working on it!"
Weasel finally looked at him, utterly unimpressed. "Whatever you are, scram. This is a place for professionals."
"Professionals like you?" Wade quipped.
Before Weasel could retort, Wade moved.
In a blur of motion too fast for a normal child, he vaulted the bar, disarmed a startled Weasel of his glass, and had him in a headlock with one arm, his other hand pressing one of his katanas against Weasel's throat.
"Let's try this again," Wade said, his voice losing its forced low pitch, which is scarier as it sounds like a creepy raspy demon child. "The name's Wade. I'm a merc. And you're going to give me work, or I'm gonna tell everyone you got your ass handed to you by a ten-year-old kid."
Weasel, wheezing, managed to nod. "Okay! Okay! Fuck! Jesus! Let go, you little gremlin!"
"Owwh, look! We are bonding already!"
[END FLASHBACK]
The crowbar-wielder stared in horror. Wade didn't give him time to process.
"Left!" he narrated, as his left fist connected with the man's nose, shattering it and impaled the man's skull instantly with his claws.
Another thug rushed him from the right. Shink. Wade's middle claw shot out in a brutal, precise jab. "Nut shot!" The man's scream joined the chorus of pain.
"Where was I? Oh yeah! A beautiful, toxic friendship was born. He still won't serve me drinks until I'm 21, tho. But like that's gonna stop me. It's not like I can get drunk anyway... though I always sneak a little something. Don't tell him. Or Logan, he's gonna snatch my secret stash I stole from Weasel if he knew!"
"I also spent my free time training the rugrats when the adults are going on a mission from Fury–still didn't believe how those two somehow became part-time SHIELD Agents, but life finds a way I guess. Taught Ken how to use his absorbent claws more easily and efficiently. Laura also knew a hundred ways to disable a man twice her size. Good, wholesome sibling activities."
/You just beat them up until they do what you want them to do./
(Which is effective training for people with regenerative healing abilities like us, but I have to admit they are rather slow in that department unlike us and Pops.)
"Well, after that, a certain bald telepath kept poking around in my brain with his little recruitment drive. So I started sending him back... special images. Let's just say, very detailed images of 'self-discovery' teenagers my age often do. Kinda got me thinking if he never gets it from another teenage mutant boy he was searching for in the past?"
[ANOTHER FLASHBACK SCENE]
(yeah we gonna have a lot in this fic)
/Its a given really./
Wade, who had been trying to teach Ken how to properly sharpen his claws on a whetstone without setting it on fire, suddenly froze. His eyes went distant.
"Ugh. Speak of the devil," he muttered. "The bald guy's poking again. With his little 'come join the super-friends' brochure."
Ken looked up, curious. "What are you gonna do?"
A wicked, slow grin spread across Wade's face. "I'm gonna send him a brochure back. A very... special one. No one messed with my mind anymore…"
He closed his eyes, concentrating. He didn't just block the psychic signal; he grabbed it and shoved a mental image back down the line with all the force he could muster. It wasn't a thought. It was a full-sensory, high-definition experience.
"Gotcha, Chuck!"
[ANOTHER FLASHBACK SCENE END]
"He stopped poking real quick after that. There's no way I'm joining his little boyband this time around. I am treasuring my freedom!"
A backfist sent a third man's teeth flying. He kicked the crowbar out of the first guy's hand, then delivered a spinning kick to his chest that sent him over the guardrail.
"SCORE! Btw! I met Blind Al too! Believe it or not! She's a riot. Don't judge me. Mostly, because she can't see me to properly judge me anyway. Been crashing at her place lately, still didn't know how she could cook a mean gumbo while blind but couldn't assemble an Ikea furniture."
[CUE FLASHBACK CARD]
The teleportation was smoother now, thanks to his belt mod, but it still ended with him stumbling out of a shimmer in the air and crashing into a stack of cardboard boxes in a dim, cluttered hallway.
"Oof! Son of a bitch!"
A door creaked open down the hall. An elderly blind woman, Al, stood there, her head tilted. "Who's there? If you're here for the rent, it's under the mat. If you're here to kill me, at least have the decency to be quiet about it. I was napping."
Wade picked himself up, brushing dust off his suit. "Uh. Neither? I'm... new in the neighborhood?"
Al sniffed the air. "You smell like gunpowder and cheap cologne. And you just materialized out of thin air. You're not new, you're lost. Or on the run. Same difference."
"Wow. Good ears," Wade said, impressed.
"I'm blind, not deaf, you idiot. Now, are you going to stand there gawking, or are you going to help me with my groceries?" She gestured vaguely toward two heavy-looking bags at the top of the stairwell.
Wade blinked. "You're asking the armed, mysterious stranger who just appeared from nowhere to help you with your groceries?"
"Are you going to kill me?" Al asked, utterly deadpan.
"No."
"Are you going to steal from me?"
"Not if you don't have any chimichangas or coke lying around. The powder one."
"Then you're more useful than my last nephew. The bags. Now."
Shaking his head in bewilderment, Wade grabbed the grocery bags and followed her into the apartment. It was a cozy, chaotic mess of knick-knacks, books in Braille, and the faint smell of cat and lavender.
"Just put them on the counter. And if you tracked mud on my good linoleum, I'll whack you with my cane."
Wade looked down at his clean boots, then back at her. "You're something else, lady."
"The name's Al. And you could stay here if you need a place to lie low. But you break it, you buy it. Understood?"
A genuine, unforced smile spread across Wade's face. "Understood."
[END AGAIN]
Wade stood amidst the chaos, the freeway traffic honking around them. He retracted his claws, reached into a pouch on his belt, pulled out a grenade, and pulled the pin with a soft ping.
"Group hug!" he said, rolling the live grenade under the sedan he'd been lying on.
He didn't wait for the result. As the shouts of panic began, he focused.
The world dissolved into a blur of color and a brief lurch–a sensation now smoothed to a mere hiccup by the stabilizer unit built into his belt.
He vanished just as the overpass echoed with the BOOM of the explosion, the sedan flipping end over end.
SPOOF!
He reappeared a hundred yards away, leaning casually against the railing of the overpass.
He looked down just in time to see the sedan he'd been on erupt in a ball of fire and shrapnel, flipping end over end in a magnificent, slow-motion fireball.
Secondary explosions from other cars in the pileup bloomed like fiery flowers.
He let out a low, appreciative whistle. "Magnificent." He dusted a speck of imaginary dirt off his shoulder. "You just can't get pyrotechnics like that on an actual movie budget. What? You can see it? Use your imagination people! Or find it on YT! Don't be lazy! You read fanfiction not watching a movie!!"
"Anyway, the merc jig was up when I was twelve. Mom and Dad found out about my little night and weekend activities. You should've seen their faces. The yelling! The scolding! But under all that..." Wade began, leaning against the railing as sirens wailed in the distance, "I swear I heard a little pride from them. I ended up making a deal with them. I could keep doing merc work, but only on weekends. No more school nights. And we were not negotiating about it."
A police car sped past on the overpass below, heading toward the carnage. Wade gave a little wave and a middle finger.
"It's kinda fun now, actually. Turns out, they have already become frequent to Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Children for some mercenary work! You should see Weasel cower when they walk into the Hellhouse. He still gets an earful from Mom about 'enabling a minor.' Good times."
[THE LAST FLASHBACK I SWEAR]
The bell above the door of the Hellhouse jingled. Weasel looked up, expecting another lowlife. His blood ran cold.
Standing in the doorway was a fourteen-year-old Wade, frozen mid-step like a deer in headlights.
And right behind him, filling the entire frame, were Wolverine and Rogue.
Wolverine's hand was clamped firmly on Wade's shoulder, preventing any escape.
"Keep moving, kid," Wolverine growled, giving Wade a slight shove forward into the bar.
The ambient noise died. Every mercenary and lowlife in the place watched the scene unfold.
Weasel's eyes darted from Wade's "oh crap" face to Wolverine's murderous expression to Rogue's icy stare. "Oh, double shit."
Wolverine marched Wade right up to the bar. "Who?" he commanded.
Wade, looking utterly defeated, pointed a trembling finger at Weasel. "Him."
Rogue stepped up, her voice deceptively sweet. "So. You're the Weasel my boy won't stop talkin' about."
"Look, Mr. and Mrs. Wolverine, I can explain–" Weasel began, holding up his hands.
"You've been givin' our son contracts," Wolverine interrupted, his voice a low growl that made the glasses tremble. "Our underage son."
"A minor!" Rogue's voice sharpened. "You been sendin' a child, my child, out to get shot at?"
Weasel shrank back. "In my defense, he's very good at his job! And he threatened me! The first time we met, he–"
"We know what he did," Wolverine cut him off, his grip tightening on Wade's shoulder. "The fact that a kid could intimidate you into this doesn't make you look any better. It makes you look pathetic."
Wade winced. "Yeah, he's not wrong, Weasel."
"Not helping!" Weasel squeaked.
Rogue leaned in close, her voice dropping to a deadly whisper. "Listen here. If we ever find out you've given our Wade another job without our express permission, especially on school nights... My husband is gonna forget he's tryin' to be civilized. And I'm gonna forget I'm a lady. Understood?"
Weasel nodded frantically. "Understood! Crystal clear! Yes Ma'am!"
Wolverine gave Wade's shoulder a final shove toward the door. As they turned to leave, Marie offered Weasel one last, sweetly terrifying smile. "You have a blessed day now."
The moment the door shut, the entire bar erupted in laughter. Weasel slumped against the counter, mopping his brow.
"That damned little fuck gremlin is actually Wolverine and Rogue's child! Fuck my life!"
[END FLASHBACK]
(Owh, I miss being italian...)
/Finally!/
"Ahh, good times indeed…" Wade relaxed as he was leaning against the rail.
"Oh, why was I chasing and fighting a bunch of guys, you ask?" Wade gestured down at the burning wreckage. "Just a little recon-turned-assassination on a corrupt political figure. My client's probably just as bad, but hey, a job's a job. I'm just waiting for the day someone puts a hit on him. It always happens anyway. Mission went sideways, the guards noticed, so I had to abandon it early. Thank god for the Deadpool gear and secret identities, am I right?"
/Are we sure this is not gonna come and bite us in the future?/
(Oh! Definitely!)
"So," he said, "You guys catch up now? Good. Let's start the real story now!"
With a final flicker of displaced air, he vanished from the overpass.
SPOOF!