The first thing you need to know about being immortal is that it tastes like copper and disappointment.
Right now, I'm experiencing the "copper" part in a big way because my tongue is currently pinned to a mahogany desk with a vibranium letter opener. It's a very nice desk. Probably costs more than the annual GDP of a small Eastern European nation—one of the ones Doom hasn't conquered yet. The man sitting behind the desk is wearing a suit that costs even more, and he looks incredibly annoyed that I'm bleeding on his upholstery.
"Mr. Wilson," the man says. His name is Alistair Smythe, or maybe it's just 'Generic Corporate Villain #4.' I've stopped checking the credits. "I asked you a question."
"Mmmph-fugh-err-ghhh," I reply.
[He can't hear you, Wade. The vibranium is absorbing the sound waves of your pathetic gurgling. Also, you're drooling. It's unprofessional.]
[I bet if he pulls it out fast, it'll make a 'thwip' sound! Like Spidey! Do the 'thwip' thing, Alistair!]
(See? This is what I have to deal with. You think it's all chimichangas and witty banter, but it's actually just a three-way argument in a skull that's currently being ventilated.)
I reach up, grab the handle of the letter opener, and pull.
The sound isn't a 'thwip.' It's a wet, rhythmic shluck-grit as the metal slides through the muscle of my tongue and the wood of the desk. My nerves, which are currently screaming in a pitch only dogs and certain types of high-end cookware can hear, begin the grueling process of knitting back together. It feels like a thousand fire ants are having a rave in the back of my throat, using my taste buds as glow sticks.
I spit a mouthful of dark, oxygenated blood onto Smythe's pristine blotter. "I said," I wheeze, my voice sounding like a blender full of gravel, "that your mother is a lovely woman, but her choice in interior decorators is 'Early Fascist Chic' at best."
Smythe sighs, leaning back. Behind him, two guys in tactical gear—the kind of guys who definitely have 'Tactical' in their Tinder bios but have never actually been in a fight—level their pulse rifles at my chest.
"You were hired to retrieve the canister from the Oscorp sub-level," Smythe says, his voice ice-cold. "Not to blow up the entire laboratory. Do you have any idea what the insurance premiums on a Class-5 biohazard leak look like?"
"In this economy?" I wipe my mouth with the back of my glove, leaving a smear of red across the black leather. "Look, Al, the canister was heavy. And the guard was being a real jerk about my 'unauthorized presence.' One thing led to another, a stray grenade ended up in a centrifuge, and—long story short—I'm pretty sure some of those scientists are going to grow extra limbs. Which, frankly, is a productivity boost. You should be thanking me."
[We lost the canister, didn't we?]
[It went 'kaboom'! Like a glitter bomb, but with more flesh-eating bacteria!]
(Shut up. I'm negotiating.)
"I'm not paying you, Wilson," Smythe says. "In fact, I'm considering turning you over to the authorities. I hear the Raft has a special cell just for people who can't take a hint."
I feel that familiar, hollow ache in my chest. It's not the bullet wounds or the stabby-stabby. It's the bank account. The rent on my 'executive suite' (a studio apartment in Hell's Kitchen where the heater sounds like a dying walrus) is three weeks overdue. My cable is cut. I'm currently subsisting on a diet of expired cereal and the occasional pigeon that flies too close to the window.
"Whoa, whoa, Alistair. Let's not get the feds involved," I say, putting on my most winning smile, which he can't see because of the mask, but I'm doing the 'smize' thing Tyra Banks talked about. "I'm a professional. A little messy? Sure. A bit of a liability? Technically. But I get results. Eventually. Usually with a high body count, which is great for the soul-reaping industry."
I stand up, my knees popping like bubble wrap. My healing factor is working overtime. I can feel the holes in my tongue closing, the edges of the wound itching with a white-hot intensity that makes me want to peel my own skin off. People think healing is a gift. It's not. It's an endless cycle of being broken and then forced back together, like a Lego set owned by a particularly sadistic toddler.
"I need a win, Al. Give me a real contract. Something high-stakes. Something that'll pay enough for me to buy a decent pair of Crocs and maybe some premium cable so I can watch those 2026 Olympics. I hear the 'Cybernetic Wrestling' event is going to be a bloodbath."
Smythe looks at me for a long time. He's calculating. He doesn't see a man; he sees a tool. A broken, blood-stained hammer that he can swing at his problems until either the problem or the hammer breaks.
"There is something," he says slowly. "A job that requires a... certain lack of morality. And a high tolerance for physical trauma."
[That's our mission statement!]
[I want to touch the pulse rifles! Ask him if I can touch the pulse rifles!]
"Go on," I say, leaning against the desk. I accidentally lean on the spot where I bled, and my sleeve gets soggy. Gross.
"A shipment is coming into the Port of New York tonight," Smythe says, clicking a button on his desk. A hologram flickers to life. It's a grainy image of a shipping container marked with a symbol I recognize all too well. A stylized 'X.'
"The Muties?" I ask, my voice dropping an octave. "Look, Al, I have a history with the X-Men. And by 'history,' I mean I've been kicked out of their house more times than a stray cat with a bladder problem. Logan owes me twenty bucks, and Scott—well, Scott is a wet blanket with laser eyes."
"This isn't an X-Men shipment," Smythe corrects. "It's a private transport from a splinter group. They're carrying a prototype. A 'biometric dampener' designed to neutralize regenerative cells. It was developed using data stolen from the Weapon X archives."
My stomach does a little flip. Not the 'I just ate a questionable burrito' flip, but the 'this is a plot device that can actually kill me' flip.
[A dampener? That sounds... final.]
[If we die, do we get to see the pretty lady in the cloak again? I like her. She smells like lilies and cold marble.]
(Not now, White. Death is busy dating Thanos or being a metaphor for the end of a comic book run. I'm not ready for a permanent dirt nap yet.)
"Why me?" I ask. "If this thing can turn off my 'special sauce,' why would you send the guy who relies on it most?"
"Because," Smythe says with a thin, cruel smile, "you're the only one desperate enough to do it. And if you fail, the dampener works. It's a win-win for me. I either get the tech, or I get rid of a nuisance."
"You really know how to make a guy feel special, Al. What's the pay?"
"Two million. Half now, half upon delivery of the dampener. No explosions this time, Wilson. If that device is damaged, I'll spend the rest of my life making sure yours is a living hell. And I have the resources to make that a very long time."
Two million. That's a lot of Crocs. That's 'buy a small island and fill it with golden retrievers' money. Or, more realistically, it's 'pay off the Kingpin so he stops sending ninjas to my bathroom' money.
"I'll need an advance for supplies," I say. "Ammo is expensive. And I need a new mask. This one has a hole in the tongue area."
Smythe waves a hand dismissively. "My assistant will transfer the funds. Don't disappoint me, Deadpool. The Port of New York. Midnight. Pier 42."
I walk out of the Oscorp building feeling like a million bucks, mostly because I have fifty thousand of it sitting in a burner account now.
The New York air is thick with smog and the smell of roasted nuts from a street vendor. It's 2026, and the city is a neon-drenched nightmare. Hover-taxis zip between skyscrapers, their LED advertisements screaming about the latest Stark-Tech neural implants or the 'New Avengers' reality show (which is just Sam Wilson trying to keep a bunch of teenagers from destroying New Jersey).
I duck into an alleyway, my boots splashing in a puddle of something that definitely isn't water. I need to gear up.
(Hey, Reader. You still there? Hope you're enjoying the view. I know, I know—the first chapter is always a bit 'exposition-heavy.' We have to set the stakes, establish the villain, and show off the protagonist's crippling depression masked by sarcasm. It's a trope. We're in a trope-sandwich right now.)
[I want a sandwich. A real one. With pickles.]
[We should probably check the wound. The 'dampener' thing has you rattled, doesn't it, Wade?]
"It doesn't rattle me," I mutter to the brick wall. A rat scurries past, looking at me with judgmental red eyes. "I'm Deadpool. I'm the Merc with a Mouth. I'm the guy who walked through a nuclear blast to find a lost remote control."
But the Yellow Box is right. The idea of my healing factor being 'turned off' is a cold finger sliding down my spine. People think I'm brave because I charge into gunfire. I'm not brave. I'm just a guy who knows the consequences don't stick. Take away the reset button, and suddenly, I'm just a scarred, cancer-ridden man in a spandex suit playing a game of 'Don't Get Hit' with the universe.
And the universe is a very good shot.
I reach my 'safe house'—a storage unit in Queens that smells like mothballs and gun oil. Inside, it's a paradise of weaponry. I've got Katanas (for the close-up 'shish-kebab' moments), Heckler & Koch MP5s (for the 'spray and pray' moments), and a collection of grenades I've nicknamed after the Golden Girls.
I start checking my magazines. Click. Snap. Slide. The repetitive motion is the only thing that calms the voices.
"Okay, boys," I say, sliding a fresh blade into the sheath on my back. "Pier 42. Midnight. We grab the box, we don't blow anything up, and we get paid. Simple. Like a Disney movie, but with more arterial spray."
[It's never simple.]
[I hope there are ninjas. I feel like we haven't fought ninjas in at least twenty pages.]
(Shhh. Don't jinx it.)
Pier 42 is a graveyard of rusted cranes and shipping containers. The fog is rolling in off the Hudson, thick enough to hide a Sentinal. I'm perched on top of a stack of 'Stark Industries' crates, looking down at the pier through the thermal scope of my sniper rifle.
There's a group of men on the dock. They aren't Hydra. They aren't Aim. They're wearing black tactical gear with no markings, but they move with a military precision that screams 'Private Military Contractor' or 'Guys who take their airsoft hobbies way too seriously.'
And then I see the container. It's being lowered from a freighter by a crane. The 'X' symbol on the side is glowing faintly blue.
"Wait a minute," I whisper. I zoom in.
Beside the container stands a woman. She's tall, with shock-white hair and a leather trench coat that's definitely trying too hard to be 'Matrix-chic.' She's holding a tablet, her eyes scanning the perimeter.
[That's Callisto!]
[The Morlocks! I love the Morlocks! They're like us, but they live in sewers and have even worse skin care routines!]
If Callisto is here, this isn't a 'splinter group.' This is Morlock business. And the Morlocks don't deal in biometric dampeners. They deal in survival.
"Smythe lied to me," I say, a slow realization dawning on me. "He didn't want me to steal a weapon. He wanted me to steal something from a group of people who are already being hunted."
Suddenly, my spider-sense—which I don't actually have, it's just a tingling sensation in my prostate that usually means I'm about to get hit by something heavy—flares up.
KABOOM.
The shipping container doesn't wait for the crane to finish. It explodes from the inside out. But it's not a fire explosion. It's a shockwave of blue energy that ripples through the pier, knocking the tactical guys off their feet.
I'm blown off my perch, falling twenty feet and landing squarely on a dumpster. My ribs shatter with a sickening crunch, the shards of bone piercing my lungs. I cough up a spray of crimson, the pain so intense that the world turns into a series of jagged white lines.
[HEAL. HEAL NOW. WADE, GET UP.]
[The trash smells like old shrimp! Why is there always old shrimp?!]
I groan, rolling off the dumpster and hitting the concrete. I can feel my ribs knitting, the bones grinding against each other as they find their original positions. It's like a puzzle being solved by a blind man with a hammer.
I look up.
Emerging from the wreckage of the shipping container isn't a device.
It's a girl.
She looks to be about fourteen. She's covered in soot, her clothes tattered. But it's her eyes that stop my heart—or what's left of it. They're glowing with that same blue energy. And as she looks around, terrified, the air around her begins to distort.
The tactical guys are scrambling to their feet, leveling their weapons at her.
"Target acquired!" one of them shouts. "Use the dampener shells! Don't let her pulse again!"
The girl looks at me. She doesn't see a hero. She sees a monster in a red suit, half-broken and bleeding on the ground.
"Help," she whispers.
And then, the 'biometric dampener' shells hit the ground around us.
A hiss of green gas fills the air. I try to take a breath, but my lungs refuse to expand. The 'itch' of my healing factor—the constant, low-level hum of cells regenerating—suddenly goes silent.
The pain doesn't go away. It stays. It settles in. My ribs, only half-healed, remain jagged and broken. The hole in my tongue reopens. The cancer—the aggressive, terminal tumors that my healing factor usually keeps in check—starts to grow. I can feel them, like lead weights in my chest, my stomach, my brain.
For the first time in a decade, I am dying. For real.
"Maximum effort," I wheeze, reaching for my katana. But my hand is shaking so hard I can barely grip the hilt.
[Wade, we're offline. The system is down.]
[I don't like this. It's too quiet. Why is it so quiet in here?]
(Because, White... the story just got a lot shorter.)
The tactical team closes in. Callisto is nowhere to be seen. The girl is screaming. And I'm just a guy in a suit, bleeding out on a New York pier, realizing that Alistair Smythe didn't hire me to steal a weapon.
He hired me to be the distraction while he captured a God.
[TO BE CONTINUED...]
(Wait, what do you mean 'To Be Continued'? I'm dying here! Hey! Author! Get back here and fix this! I can feel my liver failing! It tastes like... actually, it still tastes like copper. But the bad kind!)