Crossover } Zero and Two
Word Count: 2505
Genre: Romance, some Gen
Ships?: Xigbar/Mirage/Deadpool (though really it is more like Mirage/Deadpool and Xigbar/Mirage here)
→Friendships?: Xigbar&Deadpool?
Characters: Xigbar, Mirage, Deadpool
Rating: PG-13 for some swears, I think
Spoilers: ...None?
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Marvel, The Incredibles or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.
Music: "Elevator Muzak"
Notes: Roleplaying Xigbar alongside kaiyabeck's Deadpool and agallimaufry's Mirage ignited a furious need to write these three again. A lot has been going on these past couple of months and I really appreciate the two of them. ♥
The title refers to the fact that these vignettes happen shortly before (0) and after (2) their first night together (1), which occurs in Stuffed in a Barrel.
How some things began.
Zero and Two
Lightning cracks like a whip across the sky and thunder rumbles so loud it shakes his bones. The rain pelts down on his shoulders and back and soaks his hair. “Oh, shit,” Xigbar says.
Deadpool just laughs on the pavement as the Nobody rolls him over. It’s heavily broken laughter, like the man’s ribs Xigbar knows are currently snapped. “Shit, it punctured your lung,” he whispers. The laughter steadily fades and then stops and he glares down at the assassin as he yanks his mask off. “It isn’t funny, dude.”
“You’re joking, right? It’s hilarious. The guy without a heart panicking over a little spilt milk,” Deadpool laughs again, and turns to spit out blood on the road.
Xigbar heaves him up by an arm, slinging it over his shoulders as he helps him to the sidewalk. He watches fascinated as the rain runs down the tears the Neoshadow had made in the merc’s suit, the skin beneath it already healing. “And your ribs, they’ll just-”
“Stitch themselves back up. Like knitting old ladies or something. Bones take a couple hours.” Deadpool takes his arm off Xigbar’s shoulders, carefully rolls it back in the socket, testing to see where it hurts. “Ribs are always testy little fuckers about healing properly though.”
“Hm,” Xigbar grunts. His fingers stray a little towards the ripped fabric, towards the pink, freshly healed skin. Deadpool grabs his wrist.
“Look, but no touch, Mr. Scientist,” he chides.
“Aww,” Xigbar says, grinning.
~~~
It is a clear night in late August and Xigbar isn’t with them when a fleet of Soldiers ambush them in an alleyway.
Mirage slips away from him and disappears within seconds - some voice inside his skull notes that she is named well. He hears her guns fire, blasting holes in the hang-glider wings of the Air Soldiers above as his swords mow through Soldiers. He realizes later that there are some of those little bomb ones, when one bounces off a swiping red claw and explodes, clanging off the metal of his weapons.
It takes only minutes for him to do away with all the ones on the ground when Mirage cries in pain further down the alley and something snaps like a rubber band inside his body. He shouts her name and runs to her. His aim is impeccable, his pistol fast (her name is Carlotta, always Carlotta); the Heartless has been shot three times in the back of the helmeted head before it hits the ground.
Mirage finishes the last Air Soldier off (shot to the centre of the chest) before even turning to him. He can almost hear the background music fade out of the battle theme as those green eyes take him in.
“I’m fine,” she says, though she’s putting most of her weight on her right leg.
He looks at the back of her left calf and sees three neat cuts through her black tights. Blood.
A surprising amount of guilt socks him in the gut. He has only known her and Xigbar for maybe three-four months at this point. But he likes her. She is gorgeous and three-four months is way longer than most people have stayed. And when people he likes get hurt on his watch…
“You aren’t fine,” he says, blinks and realizes he is suddenly holding her bridal style in his arms. Whoa, when did this happen? Probably at some point during that last paragraph. [Oh, ‘kay then. What does this lady eat, nothing but peas? Maybe she’s like the Princess with all the mattresses, if y’know what I-] He clears his throat, trying to drown out the broken yammering thoughts. “Where’s your apartment? You live near here, right?”
She gives him a guarded look, pressing her lips tightly together. “Listen, I just don’t want that to get infected, all right?” he says.
She tells him. He carries her there, her left leg dangling so as not to agitate it. He doesn’t remember what he rambles about to keep her awake (even though she isn’t bleeding badly). Something about catfish, he thinks later.
Deadpool takes the elevator up. A man with curly brown hair in a dark blue business suit eyes him and Mirage with-
Let’s say he looked curious. Yeaaah.
Deadpool taps his foot to the incredibly cheesy muzak. “…So how’s it going?” he asks the man who lives somewhere in Mirage’s building and she could feasibly end up bumping into again.
Mirage thanks her lucky stars that they get out of the elevator before he does. She guides him to her door, and digs her keys out of her skirt pocket. He holds her down to the keyhole so she can open the door, feeling a bit awkward.
It’s ritzy, her apartment. Nice and big and expensive looking.
He puts her down on the couch carefully and she says that there is a first-aid kit in the front-hall closet. As he retrieves it, one of the more intelligent parts of his mind analyzes this. Near the front door, in case she has to stumble in injured alone. Smart lady.
When he comes back to her, she is peeling a long black sock off her left leg, a heeled boot lying at her feet. So she wasn’t wearing tights. He couldn’t tell before, as they go above the hem of her skirt, and he was not staring at the curve of the back of her knee as he kneels down at the bottom of the couch. Not at all.
He sits cross-legged on the carpet and clicks the white plastic kit open, grabbing the bottle of antiseptic and some cotton balls. “Y’know, I know how to do this, but I’ve never done it before.”
“Really,” she says, watching him pour it carefully onto the cotton. Then she makes a thoughtful sound at the back of her throat. “When you heal as quickly as you do, you wouldn’t need to learn.”
“Eh, didn’t always heal this quickly.” A flash in the back of his mind, like a camera bulb (someone strokes his hair and puts a band-aid on his elbow) - he ignores it. He applies the cotton swab carefully to her wounds, shallow but long, and grabs her foot quickly when she hisses and pulls away. “Military training and all that.”
“Hm.” She watches him silently, showing no outward sign that the stinging bothers her after first contact. She’s good.
He mumbles to himself. “Hm, band-aids are too small…” He takes out the roll of white bandage wrap, wrapping it around her calf before cutting through it with the provided scissors, fastening it with strips of medical tape when it is good and tight.
When he is done, Mirage stares at his gloved hand, still holding the sole of her foot.
It starts to freak him out, after a while. He reaches up and pokes her arm cautiously. “Mirage?”
“Thank you,” she says softly, looking down at him.
“Uh.” Oh what the hell, he was not blushing. Fuck, why’s she got to be so pretty- “Well, ahaha-!” He bolts to his feet, laughing awkwardly at nothing. “Yeah, no prob, just gonna- go now and shit, hahahaaaaa.”
She gets up, smiling like she knows. Oh crap, she wasn’t a mind-reader was she? (It doesn’t occur to him in that moment that his mind is too whacked to read, even if she was.)
She is much shorter than him. He could press her back down into that couch and kiss her until the sun comes up and touch her skin and god he wants to.
“Let me show you to the door,” she says, and it snaps him back to reality.
“Right, yeah.” He follows her through the kitchen to the balcony, trying to figure out if his hands were shaking. She doesn’t put much weight on her left leg, but she otherwise walks fine.
She smiles up at him when he stands outside, leaning against the sliding glass door. There is a slightly-awkward-but-also-weirdly-comfortable silence.
He screws it up. Obviously.
“I’d make a good boyfriend,” he tells her. Blurts.
No, he wouldn’t. He really wouldn’t.
She frowns, looking at him as though he’s suddenly sprouted a third eye. “Xigbar is my boyfriend,” she replies.
“Yeah,” he says, and then turns and leaps as quickly as humanly possible to the next-door neightbour’s balcony, hangs from the railing, and then drops down and out of sight.
Mirage watches him, closes the door, and retreats into her apartment.
She curls into the corner of the couch and reads her old battered copy of Five Weeks in a Balloon.
Her mind drifts, and at several points during the night, she looks down at the white bandage on her leg.
~~~
The night (sometimes referred to in the future as ‘The Night It All Got Really Fucking Complicated’) that Xigbar goes out and finds Deadpool, he is in the Metroville park, lying on a bench, staring at the sky.
Also, he is playing an accordion and wearing a fake moustache.
“LOOOOOOK AT THE SKIES / THEY HAVE STAAAARS IN THEIR EYES / ON THIS LOOOOVELY BELLLLA NOOOOTTEEEE”
Xigbar kicks the bench, but nothing of much effect happens.
“SIIIIDE BY SIDE WITH YOUR LOVED ONNNNE / YOU’LL FIIIIND ENCHANTMENT HEEEERE”
This goes on for a while.
After a couple more stanzas, Deadpool finally sits up. “Alright, the chorus of disembodied voices has taken over for me now. What’s up?”
“What’re you doing?” Xigbar asks, grinning.
“Well, seeing as I’m property of Disney now, I figured I’d serenade those two dogs wandering the park together,” he explains, pointing.
The two dogs are fighting over a rather large t-bone steak. One snarls and snaps at the other.
“What about you?” he asks, turning back.
“Finding you,” Xigbar replies. “Mirage wants to see you.”
“Listen, if this is about those silver heels I took from her closet-”
“No, she- what.”
“-I was totally going to give them back. But after Thursday. I need them until then.”
“I- all right, you know, I’m just not going to ask,” the Nobody decides, giving the man a bewildered smile and look with a tilt of his head. “I mean, she wants you to come back to the apartment with me.”
Deadpool blinks up at him, sitting with the accordion in his lap. “…Uh, okay? And that’s it? Am I bringing chips and dip?”
“Nooo, haha.” Xigbar slides on to the bench beside him, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “She wants you to come back to the apartment with me.”
“O- uh- wha-” The Nobody smirks, watching the mask’s eye slits widen probably as far as they could. “Wait. What will this encounter be rated again?”
Xigbar grins a shit-eating grin.
“Fuuuuuck-” Deadpool takes off running, leaving the accordion to tumble to the ground with a loud distinct jumble of notes. The dogs in the distance spook and take off themselves, yapping in fright. Xigbar laughs raucously and follows after him.
~~~
The morning after, Deadpool makes pancakes.
A lot of pancakes.
So many pancakes.
Seriously.
There were a lot.
The merc reluctantly parts company from them around two in the afternoon, taking the balcony again and promptly disappearing. Something about an evil corporate mastermind or something.
Xigbar watches Mirage wipe beige flecks of pancake batter from her counter. She turns to look at him, sunlight in her white hair. “What?” she asks.
“Why’d you ask for him?” he answers her question with another question, sticking his hands into the pockets of his pyjama bottoms.
“Because I knew you’d find him,” she replies, turning back to the counter.
“Hmm.” Xigbar steps closer, bare feet slapping on ceramic tile. He pulls her back close against his chest and bends his head, burying his face in her hair. It always smells like flowers. “That’s not the only reason, obviously. You wanted him.”
“Of course I did. Or was that not obvious from our actions last night?” she asks, leaning her head back to rest against him. His arms encircle her waist and she slides her fingers over his.
“I mean, you wanted to let him in. To us.”
“Hm. Yes. Though I can’t take all the blame. You were the one who first spotted him that night on the street. And you invited him along.”
“True.” He takes a deep breath; she feels the push-and-pull of it against her back. “But why?”
“Maybe we wanted to share,” she says, wrapping him as best she can in a backwards hug.
“Me and you? Sharing?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Vaguely. I mean, we haven’t exactly won congeniality contests in the past-”
“Xigbar, stop.” He stands up straight, and they look at each other, her head craned slightly. “Everyone can have a change of heart.”
“Even without one?” he asks, and she can see the honesty of the question behind the smug smirk.
“Even without one.”
They stand there, bathing in the sunlight.
~~~
Many hours later, in the dead of night, Deadpool comes back through the balcony. The kitchen is empty and the apartment is quiet, so he continues to the living room, silent.
He takes half a step back when he hears someone move in the next room - a natural cautionary reaction. He stands in the doorway and looks.
Xigbar and Mirage have fallen asleep on the couch, apparently while watching TV. The Discovery Channel is on mute, and Xigbar’s arm, lined with dark arcs of scar tissue, dangles off the cushions, the remote on the floor near his hand.
He smiles beneath the mask; he can barely see Mirage beneath the blanket that covers them both. He can only spot the glare from the TV bouncing off the white of her hair, the crown of her head. She is tucking her face into Xigbar’s chest, he sees as he comes closer. She curls closer into his body beneath the blanket, utterly asleep.
Do we have an air horn? We should get an air horn.
Deadpool ignores to voices in his head, continuing to the bedroom, where he’ll be able to put his swords down without waking them up. Not that he was noisy about that sort of thing in the first place, but-
He just didn’t want to wake them.
He ends up settling at the foot of the couch, reading a paperback he took from Mirage’s bookshelf. Something by Terry Pratchett.
Mirage wakes up during the grey dawn, as he tries to leave. “Deadpool?” she whispers, catching him.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he whispers back, loud enough that she can hear. He is behind the couch, out of eyesight.
“Where are you going?” she asks sleepily. He thinks it sounds sort of adorable. He wonders what she’d do if he told her that. He’ll have to do it sometime.
“I, uh- need to go back to my place. Finish some things up.”
“Mm.” The couch squeaks and he knows she returns to laying her head on Xigbar’s chest. He just knows. “Come by later, though?”
“Yeah, uh. Sure.”
He does.
Deadpool learns quickly that it is not hard to obey her.
~~~
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Genre: Romance, some Gen
Ships?: Xigbar/Mirage/Deadpool (though really it is more like Mirage/Deadpool and Xigbar/Mirage here)
→Friendships?: Xigbar&Deadpool?
Characters: Xigbar, Mirage, Deadpool
Rating: PG-13 for some swears, I think
Spoilers: ...None?
Disclaimer: I do not own Kingdom Hearts, Marvel, The Incredibles or any related characters. This was written out of enjoyment of the series, and no profit is being made.
Music: "Elevator Muzak"
Notes: Roleplaying Xigbar alongside kaiyabeck's Deadpool and agallimaufry's Mirage ignited a furious need to write these three again. A lot has been going on these past couple of months and I really appreciate the two of them. ♥
The title refers to the fact that these vignettes happen shortly before (0) and after (2) their first night together (1), which occurs in Stuffed in a Barrel.
How some things began.
Zero and Two
Lightning cracks like a whip across the sky and thunder rumbles so loud it shakes his bones. The rain pelts down on his shoulders and back and soaks his hair. “Oh, shit,” Xigbar says.
Deadpool just laughs on the pavement as the Nobody rolls him over. It’s heavily broken laughter, like the man’s ribs Xigbar knows are currently snapped. “Shit, it punctured your lung,” he whispers. The laughter steadily fades and then stops and he glares down at the assassin as he yanks his mask off. “It isn’t funny, dude.”
“You’re joking, right? It’s hilarious. The guy without a heart panicking over a little spilt milk,” Deadpool laughs again, and turns to spit out blood on the road.
Xigbar heaves him up by an arm, slinging it over his shoulders as he helps him to the sidewalk. He watches fascinated as the rain runs down the tears the Neoshadow had made in the merc’s suit, the skin beneath it already healing. “And your ribs, they’ll just-”
“Stitch themselves back up. Like knitting old ladies or something. Bones take a couple hours.” Deadpool takes his arm off Xigbar’s shoulders, carefully rolls it back in the socket, testing to see where it hurts. “Ribs are always testy little fuckers about healing properly though.”
“Hm,” Xigbar grunts. His fingers stray a little towards the ripped fabric, towards the pink, freshly healed skin. Deadpool grabs his wrist.
“Look, but no touch, Mr. Scientist,” he chides.
“Aww,” Xigbar says, grinning.
~~~
It is a clear night in late August and Xigbar isn’t with them when a fleet of Soldiers ambush them in an alleyway.
Mirage slips away from him and disappears within seconds - some voice inside his skull notes that she is named well. He hears her guns fire, blasting holes in the hang-glider wings of the Air Soldiers above as his swords mow through Soldiers. He realizes later that there are some of those little bomb ones, when one bounces off a swiping red claw and explodes, clanging off the metal of his weapons.
It takes only minutes for him to do away with all the ones on the ground when Mirage cries in pain further down the alley and something snaps like a rubber band inside his body. He shouts her name and runs to her. His aim is impeccable, his pistol fast (her name is Carlotta, always Carlotta); the Heartless has been shot three times in the back of the helmeted head before it hits the ground.
Mirage finishes the last Air Soldier off (shot to the centre of the chest) before even turning to him. He can almost hear the background music fade out of the battle theme as those green eyes take him in.
“I’m fine,” she says, though she’s putting most of her weight on her right leg.
He looks at the back of her left calf and sees three neat cuts through her black tights. Blood.
A surprising amount of guilt socks him in the gut. He has only known her and Xigbar for maybe three-four months at this point. But he likes her. She is gorgeous and three-four months is way longer than most people have stayed. And when people he likes get hurt on his watch…
“You aren’t fine,” he says, blinks and realizes he is suddenly holding her bridal style in his arms. Whoa, when did this happen? Probably at some point during that last paragraph. [Oh, ‘kay then. What does this lady eat, nothing but peas? Maybe she’s like the Princess with all the mattresses, if y’know what I-] He clears his throat, trying to drown out the broken yammering thoughts. “Where’s your apartment? You live near here, right?”
She gives him a guarded look, pressing her lips tightly together. “Listen, I just don’t want that to get infected, all right?” he says.
She tells him. He carries her there, her left leg dangling so as not to agitate it. He doesn’t remember what he rambles about to keep her awake (even though she isn’t bleeding badly). Something about catfish, he thinks later.
Deadpool takes the elevator up. A man with curly brown hair in a dark blue business suit eyes him and Mirage with-
Let’s say he looked curious. Yeaaah.
Deadpool taps his foot to the incredibly cheesy muzak. “…So how’s it going?” he asks the man who lives somewhere in Mirage’s building and she could feasibly end up bumping into again.
Mirage thanks her lucky stars that they get out of the elevator before he does. She guides him to her door, and digs her keys out of her skirt pocket. He holds her down to the keyhole so she can open the door, feeling a bit awkward.
It’s ritzy, her apartment. Nice and big and expensive looking.
He puts her down on the couch carefully and she says that there is a first-aid kit in the front-hall closet. As he retrieves it, one of the more intelligent parts of his mind analyzes this. Near the front door, in case she has to stumble in injured alone. Smart lady.
When he comes back to her, she is peeling a long black sock off her left leg, a heeled boot lying at her feet. So she wasn’t wearing tights. He couldn’t tell before, as they go above the hem of her skirt, and he was not staring at the curve of the back of her knee as he kneels down at the bottom of the couch. Not at all.
He sits cross-legged on the carpet and clicks the white plastic kit open, grabbing the bottle of antiseptic and some cotton balls. “Y’know, I know how to do this, but I’ve never done it before.”
“Really,” she says, watching him pour it carefully onto the cotton. Then she makes a thoughtful sound at the back of her throat. “When you heal as quickly as you do, you wouldn’t need to learn.”
“Eh, didn’t always heal this quickly.” A flash in the back of his mind, like a camera bulb (someone strokes his hair and puts a band-aid on his elbow) - he ignores it. He applies the cotton swab carefully to her wounds, shallow but long, and grabs her foot quickly when she hisses and pulls away. “Military training and all that.”
“Hm.” She watches him silently, showing no outward sign that the stinging bothers her after first contact. She’s good.
He mumbles to himself. “Hm, band-aids are too small…” He takes out the roll of white bandage wrap, wrapping it around her calf before cutting through it with the provided scissors, fastening it with strips of medical tape when it is good and tight.
When he is done, Mirage stares at his gloved hand, still holding the sole of her foot.
It starts to freak him out, after a while. He reaches up and pokes her arm cautiously. “Mirage?”
“Thank you,” she says softly, looking down at him.
“Uh.” Oh what the hell, he was not blushing. Fuck, why’s she got to be so pretty- “Well, ahaha-!” He bolts to his feet, laughing awkwardly at nothing. “Yeah, no prob, just gonna- go now and shit, hahahaaaaa.”
She gets up, smiling like she knows. Oh crap, she wasn’t a mind-reader was she? (It doesn’t occur to him in that moment that his mind is too whacked to read, even if she was.)
She is much shorter than him. He could press her back down into that couch and kiss her until the sun comes up and touch her skin and god he wants to.
“Let me show you to the door,” she says, and it snaps him back to reality.
“Right, yeah.” He follows her through the kitchen to the balcony, trying to figure out if his hands were shaking. She doesn’t put much weight on her left leg, but she otherwise walks fine.
She smiles up at him when he stands outside, leaning against the sliding glass door. There is a slightly-awkward-but-also-weirdly-comfortable silence.
He screws it up. Obviously.
“I’d make a good boyfriend,” he tells her. Blurts.
No, he wouldn’t. He really wouldn’t.
She frowns, looking at him as though he’s suddenly sprouted a third eye. “Xigbar is my boyfriend,” she replies.
“Yeah,” he says, and then turns and leaps as quickly as humanly possible to the next-door neightbour’s balcony, hangs from the railing, and then drops down and out of sight.
Mirage watches him, closes the door, and retreats into her apartment.
She curls into the corner of the couch and reads her old battered copy of Five Weeks in a Balloon.
Her mind drifts, and at several points during the night, she looks down at the white bandage on her leg.
~~~
The night (sometimes referred to in the future as ‘The Night It All Got Really Fucking Complicated’) that Xigbar goes out and finds Deadpool, he is in the Metroville park, lying on a bench, staring at the sky.
Also, he is playing an accordion and wearing a fake moustache.
“LOOOOOOK AT THE SKIES / THEY HAVE STAAAARS IN THEIR EYES / ON THIS LOOOOVELY BELLLLA NOOOOTTEEEE”
Xigbar kicks the bench, but nothing of much effect happens.
“SIIIIDE BY SIDE WITH YOUR LOVED ONNNNE / YOU’LL FIIIIND ENCHANTMENT HEEEERE”
This goes on for a while.
After a couple more stanzas, Deadpool finally sits up. “Alright, the chorus of disembodied voices has taken over for me now. What’s up?”
“What’re you doing?” Xigbar asks, grinning.
“Well, seeing as I’m property of Disney now, I figured I’d serenade those two dogs wandering the park together,” he explains, pointing.
The two dogs are fighting over a rather large t-bone steak. One snarls and snaps at the other.
“What about you?” he asks, turning back.
“Finding you,” Xigbar replies. “Mirage wants to see you.”
“Listen, if this is about those silver heels I took from her closet-”
“No, she- what.”
“-I was totally going to give them back. But after Thursday. I need them until then.”
“I- all right, you know, I’m just not going to ask,” the Nobody decides, giving the man a bewildered smile and look with a tilt of his head. “I mean, she wants you to come back to the apartment with me.”
Deadpool blinks up at him, sitting with the accordion in his lap. “…Uh, okay? And that’s it? Am I bringing chips and dip?”
“Nooo, haha.” Xigbar slides on to the bench beside him, slinging an arm around his shoulders. “She wants you to come back to the apartment with me.”
“O- uh- wha-” The Nobody smirks, watching the mask’s eye slits widen probably as far as they could. “Wait. What will this encounter be rated again?”
Xigbar grins a shit-eating grin.
“Fuuuuuck-” Deadpool takes off running, leaving the accordion to tumble to the ground with a loud distinct jumble of notes. The dogs in the distance spook and take off themselves, yapping in fright. Xigbar laughs raucously and follows after him.
~~~
The morning after, Deadpool makes pancakes.
A lot of pancakes.
So many pancakes.
Seriously.
There were a lot.
The merc reluctantly parts company from them around two in the afternoon, taking the balcony again and promptly disappearing. Something about an evil corporate mastermind or something.
Xigbar watches Mirage wipe beige flecks of pancake batter from her counter. She turns to look at him, sunlight in her white hair. “What?” she asks.
“Why’d you ask for him?” he answers her question with another question, sticking his hands into the pockets of his pyjama bottoms.
“Because I knew you’d find him,” she replies, turning back to the counter.
“Hmm.” Xigbar steps closer, bare feet slapping on ceramic tile. He pulls her back close against his chest and bends his head, burying his face in her hair. It always smells like flowers. “That’s not the only reason, obviously. You wanted him.”
“Of course I did. Or was that not obvious from our actions last night?” she asks, leaning her head back to rest against him. His arms encircle her waist and she slides her fingers over his.
“I mean, you wanted to let him in. To us.”
“Hm. Yes. Though I can’t take all the blame. You were the one who first spotted him that night on the street. And you invited him along.”
“True.” He takes a deep breath; she feels the push-and-pull of it against her back. “But why?”
“Maybe we wanted to share,” she says, wrapping him as best she can in a backwards hug.
“Me and you? Sharing?”
“You sound surprised.”
“Vaguely. I mean, we haven’t exactly won congeniality contests in the past-”
“Xigbar, stop.” He stands up straight, and they look at each other, her head craned slightly. “Everyone can have a change of heart.”
“Even without one?” he asks, and she can see the honesty of the question behind the smug smirk.
“Even without one.”
They stand there, bathing in the sunlight.
~~~
Many hours later, in the dead of night, Deadpool comes back through the balcony. The kitchen is empty and the apartment is quiet, so he continues to the living room, silent.
He takes half a step back when he hears someone move in the next room - a natural cautionary reaction. He stands in the doorway and looks.
Xigbar and Mirage have fallen asleep on the couch, apparently while watching TV. The Discovery Channel is on mute, and Xigbar’s arm, lined with dark arcs of scar tissue, dangles off the cushions, the remote on the floor near his hand.
He smiles beneath the mask; he can barely see Mirage beneath the blanket that covers them both. He can only spot the glare from the TV bouncing off the white of her hair, the crown of her head. She is tucking her face into Xigbar’s chest, he sees as he comes closer. She curls closer into his body beneath the blanket, utterly asleep.
Do we have an air horn? We should get an air horn.
Deadpool ignores to voices in his head, continuing to the bedroom, where he’ll be able to put his swords down without waking them up. Not that he was noisy about that sort of thing in the first place, but-
He just didn’t want to wake them.
He ends up settling at the foot of the couch, reading a paperback he took from Mirage’s bookshelf. Something by Terry Pratchett.
Mirage wakes up during the grey dawn, as he tries to leave. “Deadpool?” she whispers, catching him.
“Hey, gorgeous,” he whispers back, loud enough that she can hear. He is behind the couch, out of eyesight.
“Where are you going?” she asks sleepily. He thinks it sounds sort of adorable. He wonders what she’d do if he told her that. He’ll have to do it sometime.
“I, uh- need to go back to my place. Finish some things up.”
“Mm.” The couch squeaks and he knows she returns to laying her head on Xigbar’s chest. He just knows. “Come by later, though?”
“Yeah, uh. Sure.”
He does.
Deadpool learns quickly that it is not hard to obey her.
~~~
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