[Dreams of the Waking Man: Sixth Nightmare] Renovatio
blech, i feel like this one still has multiple personalities. this is a part that was heavily overhauled when i started rearranging the plot.
warnings: Earth-339. a little slash. sci-fi. world-go-boom. language: pg-13 (for f***, s***, and g**damn).
pairing: Nate/Wade, with some vague background Laura/Julian and Emma/Scott.
timeline: 2019, about an hour after the Big One.
disclaimer: i doesn't owns the movies, comics, or characters. or the assorted objects of pop culture reference.
notes: 1) renovatio (reh-no-VAH-tee-oh) is latin for "rebirth." 2) it got glossed over because i didn't do a lot of the lead-up for the Nightmare sequence, but this particular Hope's powers lean mostly toward sensing and influencing the emotions of others. she can also work a certain amount of resonance-based repulsion (like Auditor!Hope, but not quite as strong). she's never tried or thought about power borrowing, but she might be capable of it. 3) mysterious!Eight-ball is mysterious. 4) if you recall, when Kate heard the other carriers report in during Hero, one carrier reported that Ms. Marvel and the Human Torch were missing; they were looking for Hank Pym (among other things), as you'll see in Missing in Action.
Renovatio
Hope presses against the glass and stares at the smoldering skeleton of Manhattan. Some of the other carriers are visible in the distance. “Daddy, what have you done?” she whispers, and Wade feels wretched.
“This was the only way,” he says, but the words sound hollow.
“But all those people!” she shouts into the stillness. “If you’d just given it to them, none of this would’ve happened. Or-or if we’d stayed, we could have saved more.”
“It would’ve happened. Eight-ball said so. And we couldn’t have saved more by staying longer…as it was, half the carriers stayed longer than it was really safe to stay.”
“People lost limbs trying to get in at the last second,” she hisses, fingers squeaking over the glass as she clenches her fists. “People got cut in half.”
“That’s what happens when you’ve got the only boat away from certain death,” Wade bites out, feeling her anger and helplessness. “People are animals, and when they find out that the light at the end of the tunnel is a goddamn train, they will trample each other. It’s as reliable as the sun going east to west.”
“You’re a monster.”
It hurts. He’s been called a monster before-and worse. But never by the girl he raised. Never by the child who had always accepted him for what he was, always trusted him, always looked up to him.
Always believed in him.
She chose him. The moment the Traveler fixed his brain, she latched on, and she’s called him ‘Daddy’ ever since.
And now she’s calling him ‘monster’ instead.
Bitterly, he fidgets with Eight-ball and tosses his head in a shrug. “Yeah, well…I’m sure Nate must’ve warned you about that before you met me. What the hell kinda guy teaches a little girl sixteen different ways to disable a human being with nothing but her hands and feet, right?”
She won’t look at him. She just presses against the glass and sniffles softly. “That thing is evil. I don’t want to talk to you anymore. Please go.”
“Princess, I did this for you, I knew you’d want me to at least try to save some of them…”
“Just get away from me.”
Slowly, he drags himself away and starts to wander through the carrier. He stops at another window, stares down at the ocean.
Nate somehow finds him.
“You gonna yell at me, too?” Wade asks dully.
Nate just pulls him close and doesn’t say anything.
Wade clings gratefully and pretends he isn’t crying.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Nate tells him after a while. “Don’t ever think that. Someone on the other side of the planet pushed a button. By this time tomorrow, someone else will push another button, and a million other fathers will feel just as helpless as you do, but their daughters will be dead. You saved Hope. You saved her. And that means everything.”
“But she’s growing up so fast,” Wade huffs. “She’s at ‘that age,’ getting all rebellious and ‘Daddy, I hate you’ and shit. Nobody ever said it would be like this. Nobody ever said I’d empathize with my drunk asshole father. I don’t guess this is what you were expecting when you and the Traveler ‘fixed’ my head again.”
“That you would try to save us from the first strikes of a nuclear war?” Nate asks, and rubs Wade’s back. “Not exactly. But I certainly knew that you would do anything for Hope.”
A woman clears her throat.
Wade wipes his face and nudges Nate away.
Laura stands there, looking weary but proud.
“Hey, Greenie. Where’re the chipmunks?”
She rolls her eyes with good humor. “Juliet and James are with their father. Fury’s looking for you; people are talking about wanting a Council of some kind before we get back to Utopia. The carriers are essentially a sovereign nation now… There are some people-some very important people-who want you in charge, since you’re the one who knew it was coming and got us all out.”
He scoffs. “You mean they’re not all shouting that I should’ve just forked the thing over?”
She flinches. “Not all. Some of us…know what that thing is capable of. And we agree that it’s probably safest in your hands. Whatever your reputation used to be, whatever things you did, I’ve always found you to be a good judge of character. And for what it’s worth…I’ll always trust you, old man.”
So he sighs and follows her. She leads him to some important-looking meeting room deep in the heart of the helicarrier, armored enough that they could probably survive a crash-landing in it.
Scott and Emma are there, and Hank and Logan and Neena, and Reed Richards, and half the Avengers’ east coast roster, and Colonel Fury (of course), along with some SHIELD people Wade vaguely recognizes.
“The hero of the hour,” Emma says, and smirks.
Wade doesn’t feel like a hero. Three of their people are missing, and another is dead. They’re the heroes.
“All I see is the man responsible for the nuclear destruction of the eastern seaboard,” Steve Rogers argues darkly.
“Last time I checked, I wasn’t Chinese,” Wade remarks. “And at least I never lost my mind and went on a retarded crusade against the government and millions of scared people.”
That hits home, and Wade takes a deep and nasty sense of satisfaction from the wounded look on the former Captain America’s face.
“How did they even find out about the Node?” Hank wonders.
“Ask it,” Laura suggests. Her green eyes are sharp and intent on Wade. “Go on. It’s the only one that would know for sure, isn’t it?”
He hesitates for a moment, just because he doesn’t know everyone in the room and a lot of the ones he does know have never seen Eight-ball. Then he turns his back and pulls it out of his coat. He fumbles until the control grid appears. Three buttons. The combination path. His hand stumbles, his fingers falter-it flashes red and beeps.
“Relax,” says Emma. “You’re thinking too hard. Don’t mind us-remember, we couldn’t copy it even if we wanted to.”
So he takes a deep breath, lines his hand up again, and turns back to them, hand flipping smoothly around the sphere, turning it and tumbling it with an easy grace that keeps it in fluid motion.
“Jesus,” mutters Stark.
“How does he even…” mumbles Patriot (Wade’s never liked the dork, and intentionally forgot his actual name).
“Knives,” Logan realizes. “It’s how he plays with knives.”
Eight-ball suddenly flares blue. ~Hello, Wade.~
“Skip the pleasantries, you horrible little empty-snowglobe piece of shit,” Wade growls. “How did Schmooples and the girl know about you?”
~You sound unhappy, Wade. I’ve done exactly as I promised you I would.~
“Bullshit, this is a fucking nightmare!”
~To use terms you pigheaded cretins can comprehend, I fucking told you so. I told you this was a colossal waste of time and effort, but you were insistent. Against my better judgment, I helped you with this futile exercise in conscience-stroking, and now you’re complaining like a little bitch. There’s just no pleasing some people. Now, as for your question…would you prefer a subject designation, or simply an identity?~
“The full designation, please,” Reed Richards puts in.
~Very well, Dr. Richards. The entity responsible for making my presence known to the timestream fugitive Schmooples was subject designate Lucas Bishop WM442-Epsilon.~
Wade blinks. “Epsilon? He split again?”
~That’s correct, but irrelevant. His efforts have nothing to do with subject designate Hope Wilson WM339, and he remains ignorant of my true nature. Schmooples and her puppets, however, know exactly what I am, and their actions have forced a resonance misalignment. That is to say, the events which should coincide with the lifetimes of certain highly resonant individuals have been shifted.~
“The clarification makes less sense than the first thing you said,” Wade growls. “Fucking speak plain English before I smash you into a million godforsaken pieces, you nasty little thing.”
It flickers for a moment. ~You won’t do that; I’m the only one who can tell you how to save Hope. To use understandable but inaccurate vocabulary…the ‘destinies’ of a few specific people have been moved through time. In order for those destinies to be realized, those people must also be moved.~
“We couldn’t find Forge-the only working timeslide module is Nate’s, and the control chip is junked. And considering his record, I wouldn’t exactly trust him bouncing around through the timestream to taxi people to their ‘destinies’ in the first place.”
~Scanning worldwide chronometric wavelength…~ Eight-ball blinks once, twice. ~Forge WM332-Sigma has already been taken by Stryfe WM339-Alpha, as has Henry Pym WM338.~
“Hank?” Stark echoes, aghast.
It blinks some more. ~Henry Pym WM338. Also Ant-Man. Also Giant-Man. Also Wasp.~
“No wonder Carol and Johnny couldn’t find him,” Rogers sighs.
“Why would Stryfe take them?” Richards wonders. “A mutant technologist and a sub-atomic particle theorist…”
~Discerning motivation isn’t my prerogative. Currently, the primary objective set forth to me from the Network is to reunite Hope Wilson WM339 with her resonance key. She must be semi-linearly displaced in the timestream.~
“Why?” Richards presses. “What is the significance of reuniting an individual with her resonance key-her destiny, as you put it earlier? Is that the function of the Fate Network?”
~You probably wouldn’t understand any explanation I could give as to the function of the F-473 Timestream Maintenance Network. And the full significance of reuniting highly resonant subjects with their resonance keys will be entirely lost on a pre-sliding society. Maybe if you listened to a lecture on the nature of timesliding and the natural laws by which it operates and is governed… Ah, but Forge WM332-Sigma is no longer present in this time branch, and he wouldn’t likely be able to verbally express what is to him an entirely intuitive concept. So nevermind. Well, now that that’s out of the way…~
“What about Nathan?” Scott asks.
Eight-ball flashes red. ~Nathan Dayspring WM339-Gamma has, at best, an operational knowledge of sliding technology. Given the pieces of a module, he could assemble or repair it, but he certainly couldn’t explain how it works. Only one individual who has recently visited this branch could: Wade Wilson BT562-Omega, Keeper 188. He’s not likely to return. We’re wasting time; Hope Wilson WM339 must be displaced within the year.~
“And if she is not?” Hank prompts.
~Her hyperbolic chronometric resonance is already out-of-phase with the current time branch. The longer she stays here, the higher the level of chronometric entropy grows. If it reaches a critical mass, the resonance patterns of all beings present in the entire timestream bundle will experience phasic-canceling and re-tuning. In effect, the bundle will be erased, necessitating the further deletion of several others in order to maintain the stability of the overall timestream resonance pattern. If Hope Wilson WM339 isn’t displaced within the next year, this universe and several more will be destroyed in order to prevent the destabilization of the multiverse.~
There’s silence in the room for a long time.
Then, smugly, ~That is the F-473 Timestream Maintenance Network’s primary function: the preservation of the multiverse through hyperbolic chronometric resonance tuning.~
Richards rubs his chin. “Well, if Hope’s remaining in this timeframe will bring about either the end of this universe or the end of the entire multiverse…I suppose we should make every effort to help her reach her destined timeframe. Perhaps if we were allowed to examine Cable’s timeslide module, we could reverse-engineer something.”
“No,” Wade vetoes immediately. “Hell no. Aside from the Skrull-findy-gun, which wasn’t a big whoop after I found out how to kill the Skrull queen and Normie stole the info from me, you’ve spent the last ten-plus years breaking the world. All that civil war jazz? Yeah, that was your sloppy calculations, pal.” He turns on Stark next. “And by the same token, Nate’s techno-bits are not becoming StarkTech, because I know the kinda shit you’d do if you had a slide module. Shit, you can’t even be trusted with your own brain, so you’re not going anywhere near Nate’s.”
“Then what do you suggest?” Stark counters with an arched eyebrow.
Wade subsides a little. “Eight-ball ‘n I will come up with something privately,” he says. “Seriously, I don’t trust you genius-types.”
~It doesn’t matter. The materials necessary for the construction of timeslide technology are extremely difficult to obtain-attempting to procure them would be prohibitively dangerous in the current political climate. There’s a 97% chance that attempts at reverse-engineering more than a single unit would lead to catastrophic failure.~
“How catastrophic?” Richards asks.
~The materials are exceptionally volatile. Careless impact, pressure, or heat could make a big enough kaboom to take out a Helicarrier. We have easy access to the proper components for a single unit; however, it would only have sufficient power for a single transit of less than fifty kilograms up to three thousand years forward or twice that backward.~
Richards rubs his chin some more. “Hm. If we analyze the mass-curve…”
~The unit must be used to transfer Hope Wilson WM339, and all its fuel reserves must be intact in case of electronic malfunction. When she’s gone, I may provide you with extensive schematics, as well as thorough instruction in the laws and theory of timesliding. But if you impede my primary function, you’ll simply have to puzzle your own way through sliding technology.~
“I think that’s a ‘hands off and out of the way,’” Wade translates helpfully, and closes his hands over Eight-ball. “Now. If you’ll excuse me, I’ve gotta go figure out how to put together a timeslide module and convince my daughter-who currently hates me-that we’ve gotta send her skipping through time again in order to save the universe.”
“Wait!” Tony Stark calls, just as Wade turns to go.
Slowly, tossing the now-inert glass ball into the air and catching it again, Wade looks back at the assembled superhero VIPs.
“The government’s going to put out the spin that it was your fault, you know. It’s the biggest nuclear event in history. They’re already calling it ‘the Big One.’ Capital letters and all.”
“All the more reason to ride off into the sunset, never to be heard from again,” Wade mutters.
“But, ah…” Stark seems to waver a bit. “Well, obviously, none of us would be here, on these carriers, if we hadn’t listened to you. Whether we believed you ourselves or were convinced by others who did…you were right, and you saved all our lives. We were thinking…we have seven carriers, so we’ll make our leading council up of seven, but…”
“Are you going to get to the point before the end of the universe?” Wade asks, eyeing the others in the room.
“We need some kind of supreme commander, and he needs to be somebody who has all the facts, and the will to do what’s necessary.”
“Sounds like the guy who deleted his own brain is the prime candidate, congratulations,” Wade quickly says, and makes for the door again.
Emma catches him neatly with an arm around his. “Not so fast, dear. The seven commanders have already been chosen. And the supreme commander, too.”
“There was an election and I missed it? That’s some pretty secret ballots you got there.”
“Don’t be cute, Wade; we didn’t have time for that and you know it.”
“Captain Crazy and Scotty McBoyScout stood for that?”
Scott sputters.
Emma just smiles. “They helped choose the seven, and I think they did a good job.”
“Good. Great. Don’t need me, then, so I’ll just-”
“Just be an absolutely wonderful supreme commander, dear,” Emma says, dragging him back to the conference table with surprising strength.
“Yeah, I thought you’d say that,” he sighs. “And the seven lucky dictators who get to listen to me and my crazy crystal ball?”
Stark looks like he’s swallowed something bad. “As you pointed out, the man who deleted his brain was a prime candidate.”
Wade waves a hand. “Don’t worry, I’m sure your boyfriend will keep you in line by beating you half to death every time you do something stupid, just like last time.”
Rogers clears his throat.
“The other six unlucky rubes?” Wade prompts.
Stark pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “Reed Richards-”
“Well on your way back to rule by psycho geniuses, then.”
“Shut up for thirty seconds, please.”
“Counting.”
“As I was saying…Reed Richards, Nick Fury, Clint Barton, Luke Cage…”
“Very affirmative action, I like it.”
Stark pointedly ignores him. “…Emma Frost…”
Wade pats Emma’s hand on his arm. “Good for you, Frosty.”
“And Nathan Summers.”
“Dayspring,” Wade corrects out of habit, before the words catch up to him. “Shit. Also? No. I’m pretty sure Nate would tell you to stick it where the sun don’t shine.”
“That’s why we didn’t ask him,” Scott says.
Wade points accusingly. “Oh, that’s low, Dad.”
“Wilson, we’ve talked about this at least half a dozen times. I don’t care what kind of relationship you have with my son, you do not call me ‘Dad.’”
Feigning surprise, Wade puts a hand over his heart. “That’s news to me. And the logic is lacking. If my daughter calls you ‘Grandpa,’ why can’t I call you ‘Dad’?”
“No.”
“Spoilsport.” Wade tries again to leave the room, but Emma’s grip is firm.
“Wade?” she says.
“Yeah, if you don’t mind, I’m gonna go find a nice quiet corner to have a nervous breakdown. You can tell Nate the good news yourself.”
“We’ll need to make some kind of statement-to what’s left of the United States government, if nothing else.”
“That’s awesome-you guys can take care of that, because, as may have been mentioned, half the country’s just been blown up, a hundred thousand people are now relying on me, and Hope hates my guts.” Wade carefully hooks Emma by a pressure point in her hand to remove her grip. “I won’t leave the ship. I’m just going to find the darkest place on it to hide for a few hours and have a nice, quiet little freak-out.”
“It’s your ship now, Supreme Commander,” Stark says, and Wade thinks he enjoys the title a little too much. “Flagship of the Helicarrier Fleet, which we’re going to have to declare a sovereign nation. Under SHIELD, she was called ‘Skybird One.’ Care to give her a new name?”
Wade fidgets a little at the door. “Call her Providence,” he says, and ducks out before somebody else can grab him.
.End.
merianmoriarty has my formal permission to pimp my fics on various comms (if/when i ever abandon deviantART, i'll go ahead and join the comms myself and take care of getting things posted in the right places). no one has permission to re-post this ANYWHERE, but feel free to share or link.
« [Nightmare 5] Project Ark ● Dreams Side Story: Hero ● Dreams Side Story: Freeze Frame ● Dreams Side Story: Missing in Action ● Dreams Side Story: Knowing ● [Nightmare 7] Aftermath »