[Fic] Sugar and Spice part 8 - Cable/Deadpool + Hope
Title: Sugar and Spice 8/??
Author: Guardian
Rating: T
Characters: Cable, Deadpool, Hope
Timeline: Starting off around Cable #12 and going into AU.
Disclaimer: written for fun, not profit.
Word Count: 1,581
Summary: Wade and his little boxes try to save the day.
Previous parts: Part 1 - Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5 - Part 6 - Part 7
Any other day, seeing Death would have been a real welcome treat. But despite the enchanting atmosphere - Death had shredded up some innocent roses and strewn their petals everywhere, and had lit enough candles to make the arsonist in him weep - something wasn't sitting right with Wade. He wasn't happy to see her. Quite the opposite, even when she rose out of bed wearing only silk lingerie.
"Let go, my darling. Join me."
Wade stood still, pouting, even as the skeletal beauty kissed him through his mask.
"What's the problem, stud?"
"It's just... I've kinda got someone else right now," Wade said. He grimaced at the anger in her empty eye sockets. "Any other time, I'd jump at the chance, babe. Honestly! It's not you, it's me. See, I got a kid now and I got this cool domestic partnership going on with Nate..."
Death sighed. "You really know how to let a girl down."
"I just think maybe I've finally got my head on straight-"
"Shut up, I'm not in the mood anymore."
She snapped her fingers and vanished.
"WADE!"
It was the punch that brought Wade back to consciousness. That punch was solid, sturdy... jaw-breaking. It had Nathan Summers written all over it, with flowing script. Wade's penmanship had always been frustratingly lacking.
"Good, you're talking," Nathan said. Had he been speaking out loud again? Nate's voice wasn't so good to hear, though. He sounded angry in a way that made Wade want to be dead again. "Do you know where they took her?"
"N-no..." Wade croaked. "Didn't see."
Nate let go of Wade's shirt, letting the mercenary drop bonelessly back into a pool of his own blood and brain matter. He left, and Wade couldn't follow, for lack of response in his legs.
"Nate..."
"I told you to protect her," Nathan said, the hurt just dripping out of his voice as he walked away.
You really screwed that one up.
"I got shot. In the head."
A minor set back.
"Right. Okay. We can still save the day."
Just as soon as our brain grows back.
It took a full minute for his brain stem to patch itself up, or whatever it needed to do. He crawled to his feet and hurried through the tunnels.
"What's the plan?"
Get the heck outta here.
We need a better plan that that.
Get out of here, find tacos, and feast.
I like that.
"Shaddup, guys. I'm hatching a brilliant scheme."
But we're your brain!
Yeah, what the hell, man?
Deadpool found an escape route, climbing up a ladder two rungs at a time and squeezing himself out of the narrow opening to the surface.
He swallowed heavy breaths, pausing to orientate himself. Cool night air hit pieces of bare skin through his torn mask. The air in this time smelled different. Even the ground under his feet felt different.
Wade realized with great discomfort that although he had spent as much time here as Nate, he never went above into the city. He didn't know the stealthy routes that Nate probably did, or understand where the different buildings were. But he had a huge advantage over Nate. He didn't give a flying fig about what he had to do to get to Hope.
"Hey buddy," he hunted down and cornered the first citizen he could, holding one blade to the man's throat, the other at the ready. "Bunch of soldiers came through with a little red-haired girl. You're either gonna tell me where the hell she is, or you're going to find out first-hand if a head really does keep living a few seconds after decapitation."
////
It was almost magical, really. All Wade had to do was follow the sound of gunfire, and there Nate was.
"Wade," Nate grunted in greeting while he reloaded. "Nice to see you operational again."
"She's in that big gray building," Wade said, pointing and then ducking to avoid taking another headshot.
"I know." Nathan turned, firing around the wall, and then ducked back behind his cover. "Fifty men guarding the entrance, and even more pouring out. Bishop is on his way."
"Go get Hope," Wade said. "I'll make mince out of Bishop when I see him."
"What do you think I'm trying to do? We're running out of time, Wade. If she dies, we die."
"Yeah, yeah I know. She's the salvation of mutant-kind."
"No, Wade. We literally die, here and now. Bishop has a nuclear device. He's going to activate it as soon as he sees Hope. He wants to watch her die. Everyone else will, too."
"Nuclear device?"
"Yes," Nate grumbled, firing more shots at the enemy. He flinched when a bullet hit his TO arm and ricocheted away.
Big boom. Bye-bye Wade. Bye-bye tacos.
On the bright side, you'll be vaporized with Nate. That's kind of the best way we could finally bite it. Even though he hates you right now.
"Shut up, both of you! I can still pull through."
How? There are a hundred guys out there. Even Cable can't tear through them.
"Yeah, but I got a tactic that Nathan never thinks to use."
Making yourself look psychotic?
"Usually, yeah. But this time? We CHEAT!"
Wade charged the group... unarmed. He took a few bullets, mostly at random because they hadn't expected him, and didn't have time to properly aim at the new target. He deftly kicked the gun out of the hands of the first soldier he reached, and then used the man's height to spring himself into the air, and ran across the heads of the soldiers like stepping stones.
No way.
Genius.
Wade jumped off the last soldier, grabbing the ledge of a roof and hauling himself up.
I can't believe that really worked.
We're just that awesome. Deal with it.
Too bad we're sitting ducks now.
I think Nate has our back.
Yeah, and he's gonna have our ass when we finally rescue Hope.
We'd actually like that, admit it.
"Focus, brain!" Wade shouted. "There's no door. No door, no door, no door!"
When is a door not a door?
"Oh, hell-"
When it's a plate-glass sun roof.
"This is gonna hurt," Wade cringed, but leapt before the smarter parts of his brain could stop him. "Bonzai!"
Smash!
The glass showered down around him, the little tinkling of sharp, shiny pieces sounding a whole lot prettier than the noise his legs made, breaking on impact.
"Was that a 'sploitch'?" Wade asked, in between pants of his patented breathing-through-the-pain technique.
That was a very loud 'KRAKK!'
"Yeah, but there was a sploitch, too," Wade grumbled.
I think that was our spleen exploding.
You could have, you know, shot the glass instead of just smashing through it.
"Now you tell me. Hurkk-" Wade forced himself to his feet even before his bones healed, stumbling through the empty, nondescript room. He opened the door, sticking his head out into a hallway. "Hmm. Is everyone outside shooting at Nate?"
Probably. He makes a good distraction.
"But they saw me break in," Wade complained.
The guy's built like a tank. We're built like a dancer.
Yeah, but a manly dancer!
"You got that right!" Wade cheered, and began busting into every door down the hall, guns in both hands. He shot anything that wasn't a small, red-haired child, or a bodacious female.
"Where is she?!" Wade questioned, pressing the barrel of his gun into a man's temple.
"Grkk-kk-!"
"Is that nearby?"
You shot him in the throat, bro.
"Oh, right." Wade dropped the quivering human and strolled off, focusing his highly trained superhero senses to detect danger and seek out the damsel in distress.
Highly trained superhero senses?
"Shut it. This is my book."
And Hope was, of course, in the big creepy room that looked like Dr. Frankenstein's wet dream.
"Wade!" Hope cried, struggling against a pair of manacles that chained her hands to the floor.
"Stop where you are, sir," a man in a white coat said, pointing a gun at Wade.
"Whadyu call me?!"
"This isn't a child to be rescued," the man reasoned. "She's a terrible threat! She has evil powers beyond what any man should possess. The Bishop, he will arrive and save our people. He will-"
BLAT!
"Heh. 'Blat!' I like that noise. Like a gunshot, plus the sound of his occipital lobe doing a Jackson Pollock all over the wall." Wade stepped unceremoniously over the body, going to Hope and kneeling down. "Sorry about all the blah blah blah, kiddo. Forgot I had to reload."
"You- you got shot," Hope sobbed, "and I thought- I thought-"
"I told you my healing factor was better than Wolverine's!" Wade said. "A little lead to the head is like a trip to the spa for me. What the hell are these chains made of?"
"H-he said it was ad... adama-"
"Shiiiit. We have to go. Why did they have to skimp on everything but the chains?"
"Maybe Nathan can-"
"Nathan is dealing with other things," Wade interrupted. "Like keeping Bishop occupied, I bet. But I'm not sure. Bishop could be on his way here."
"Then you'll have to fight him," Hope decided breathlessly.
"If he even sees you, I don't think I'll have a chance for a witty one-liner," Wade admitted. There was only one way to do this, short of a deux-ex-Nathan. Even the little boxes were agreed on this one. "I can get you out. I just hope you'll have hands after."
"My hands?" Hope squeaked, but barely had time to be very afraid. Wade grabbed her tightly and activated the time device on his belt.
//////
"Hurrggh!" Hope coughed and spat on the ground. "I hate timesliding. How did you-?" she looked up in time to watch Wade detach the time device from his belt, toss it away and then shoot it.
"What did you do that for?! Wade... that was the time mechanism, wasn't it?! We needed that!"
"Not anymore," Wade muttered. "Welcome back to the 21st century, kid."
"Back?" Hope echoed quietly, and you could've sworn that Wade had just shot a puppy in the head. Repeatedly. And he knew it, too. "But... but Nate can't go back in time..."
"I know." Wade looked away, trying to idly wonder what part of the arctic circle he had ported them to.
"So Nate is- Nate is-!"
"Cool it!" Wade reached for her shoulders, but didn't even notice that she had taken the switchblade out of her sock and her punches were coupled with stabbing pain. "Ow! Aah! Stop it, Hope."
"You'll heal, right?" Hope growled.
"Yeah, but it tickles," Wade complained, not sure to be pleased or disappointed that Hope's attack had already stopped, and she didn't seem to be able to work up the nerve to keep stabbing him. He sighed. "Of all the things you could learn from me, Nate's gonna be pissed that you picked up my homicidal tendencies."
"I..." Hope trembled, the knife still clenched in her bloody fist while she tried not to cry. "If I had my mutant powers, I'd make you explode."
"And that'd be really cool, and I'd deserve it. But listen. Nate told me to protect you. He told me if things got bad, to 'port you out. That's the God's-honest truth."
"I didn't want to go! Nate can't get back," Hope said, and the tears started flowing freely. "Of all the places you could've taken us..."
"Nate can't go back," Wade agreed. "And Bishop doesn't know about me. So this is the last place he's gonna expect to find you. Trust me, kiddo, this is what Nate wanted. He'll fix his time thingy and find us. He could probably meet up with us tomorrow."
Hope shook her head. "I could live my whole life and never see him again."
"This is time travel, Hope. He'll be here tomorrow," Wade repeated, sure of it. "Come here."
Hope reluctantly went to Wade, burying her face against his shoulder. He was so much warmer than the cold desert around them. "Nathan said there used to be plants."
"This is the middle of nowhere," Wade explained. "We're gonna go somewhere better. Somewhere with cable. Television, that is. You'll love it, I promise."
"I'm too tired to walk," Hope sighed.
"Lucky you, 'cause I've got this handy teleporter," Wade said. "But if you thought timesliding was bad, this is worse." He folded Hope's switchblade up and tucked it back into her sock. "Here, you can stab me again when we land."
Hope grimaced, burying her face even more against Wade's chest. "Where are we gonna go?"
"That's... a really good question."
Part 9