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The rock of the pit is smooth under Scott's gloved fingertips, no matter which way he walks or how high he reaches or how low he stoops. This only confirms what he had already suspected in the very low light, nothing but the twinkle of starlight from far above and the glow of a single cell phone screen illuminating their prison. There are no handholds or ways to climb out. He’s paced back and forth across the floor already and discovered no sign of grate or vent or access from beneath. They’re trapped, in a perfectly cylindrical pit less than ten paces across and deep enough that even if one of them stood on the other’s shoulders, they wouldn’t even be halfway up the wall.
He turns and slumps against that wall, sliding down until he's sitting on the floor, which is just as smooth and unmarked as the walls. At least it's moderately clean here at the bottom, some drifts of dry leaves and a little sand, but otherwise not so bad.
He could almost stand to wait here and see if the X-Men manage to work out where he is and stage a rescue before he dies of thirst, except that his pit mate makes this confinement the opposite of 'not so bad.'
That would be the owner of the cell phone, who gives the device a couple more disgruntled taps before he gives up and slips it into one of the leather pouches on his belt, a necessity because his red-and-black suit is skintight and in addition to leaving nothing about the musculature of the individual inside it to the imagination, has no pockets.
"Sorry, Cyc, I've got no reception down here. What about you? Telepathic mind footsie phone home to Jean working at all?"
Deadpool speaks casually, as unconcerned as if they were standing in Central Park in broad daylight, as he starts strolling around the pit as if only mildly curious about their surroundings and as if they weren’t in very real danger. Then again, Deadpool isn’t in any particular danger. The induced mutation of his super-charged healing factor means that for all practical purposes, it is impossible for him to die. Scott has found that the mutate perpetually moves through circumstances with body language that says he really doesn’t worry the least bit about his personal safety.
It’s a stark contrast to Logan. The comparison rises unbidden to Scott’s mind, comparing his longtime friend to Deadpool. While both are imbued with an incredible healing factor (although Logan’s is a bit slower operating and less extreme), and while both share similarities in their backgrounds, Logan moves through life with a guarded, angry purpose. Scott privately thinks that Logan, like himself, is tired of losing people he cares about. It leads to a prowling, gruff demeanor, an extreme caution regarding the world around him.
Deadpool seems just the opposite. He’s strolling, kicking piles of leaves, poking around with body language showing a flippant disregard for caution. Scott hopes Deadpool doesn’t end up getting him killed.
"No, no response from Jean," Scott says, using force of will to keep his tone even and not grit his teeth. "I think this pit is shielded somehow against telepathic communication."
“Bummer. There goes any chance that Nate would hear me calling for his heroic metal ass and come rescue us. ‘Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi, you’re my only hope!’ Askani’son Kenobi? Anyhoo, looks like no Summers or Grey family telepaths are going to be rescuing us.”
Scott sighs, partly at the rambling, partly at having Deadpool bring up Nate. His son’s strong, if off-again-on-again, friendship with Deadpool is high on Scott’s list of least favorite things. “Apparently not. Also, you’re not a telepath. Please remember, you can’t just think about a telepath and have them hear you, it doesn’t work that way.”
“Neither are you, but you and Jean talk.”
Scott gives a slight shrug. “Jean and I have a telepathic bond. I have a limited ability to reach out to her.”
The Deadpool shaped shadow in the gloom turns back toward him, planting himself firmly with hands on hips.
“You and Jean have a telepathic bond, you send her a brain SOS. Me and Nate have a telepathic bond, I send him a brain SOS. Same thing.”
Scott blinks. Blinks again.
“What did you say?”
“Brain SOS? I mean, like calling for help. I know you’re not actually thinking morse code at Jean. Hey, did you know that SOS isn’t an acronym? It was chosen as a distress signal because it wasn’t actually a real word or common acronym, so whoever received it wouldn’t think it was a different word and ignore it.”
“No, not that, the telepathic bond thing,” Scott says weakly.
“Oh. Whaaat?” Deadpool sounds a little self-conscious, rubbing at the back of his masked head. Even if there was enough light to see, the mask would have prevented Scott from seeing the other’s face, but his voice and body language always make up for the lack of facial features. “I mean, we ended up in each other’s heads a couple of times, back when he was running that floating hippy island of his. I guess technically it was me in his head, canon’s established it’s not easy for any telepath to get into mine. And I’m sure it got explained away as an effect of us swapping genetic material, and I don’t mean the fun way--” Scott winces “--and anyway it seems to have faded anyway.” The last is said almost wistfully.
This. This right here. This is why Scott hates being around Deadpool.
“Hey, I gotta pee, and since I’m not duct taped to a chair or something, I’m just going to go use the little boy’s side of this pit.” He turns and strolls to the side of their prison furthest from Scott and there’s the unmistakable sound of a zipper, and then a watery sound and a happy sigh.
Scott groans and scrubs his hands over his face, or what he can of his face, given the cowl of his X-Men suit and his visor are in the way.
Okay, fine, this is one of many reasons Scott hates being around Deadpool. It’s not just the potty humor and the crudeness, not just the tendency to react to mundane situations with deadly force, not just the insanity or the attention span of a gnat. It’s the random comments he’ll drop about his relationship with Scott’s son that Scott hates the most, that leave him feeling like a fish on a line gasping in unfamiliar air.
There is no way Nathan and Deadpool have or ever had a telepathic connection. There’s the part where Deadpool’s healing factor scrambles his brain activity so badly that telepaths can’t actually dig around in his mind, or if they try it’s a physically painful and ultimately fruitless endeavour. And also … it’s Deadpool. Flippant where Nate is focused. Insane and impulsive where Nate makes careful plans. Just … gross, and Scott means the man’s entire being and not just his skin, he likes to think he’s open-minded enough about mutations not to hold Deadpool’s mottled, scarred, and lesion-covered skin against him … and not something he wants his son getting involved with. He refuses to believe they had any sort of deep mental bond.
(He tries very hard not to think about the hint of wistful longing in Deadpool’s voice when he says the link has faded. He tries not to remember that Nathan actually kept the madman around Providence for a long period of time, either as a hired gun or a supporter or--so the less reputable news sources had joked--as a pet. Tries not to remember how loyal Deadpool had always seemed to his son.)
The sound of a zipper going back up breaks him out of unpleasant thoughts. Deadpool strolls over and stands casually a few feet away.
“So. Guess you’re screwed unless someone finds us,” he says thoughtfully.
Scott grimaces. “Yes. So glad you’re observant enough to notice.”
Deadpool seems undeterred or just doesn’t register the snide comment. “Water’s the big problem. Oh, damn it, I should have peed in a cup or something. In a pouch? In a boot? Hey, Cyc, do you have something we can pee in so you could drink it? I hear you can drink pee like two times before it gets toxic.”
Scott is hit by a wave of revulsion so strong that he nearly gags. “Absolutely not,” he manages.
“Suit yourself,” Deadpool says with a shrug. “I guess food is mostly water anyway. I can cut strips off me and you can fry them with your eyeball lasers.”
“No,” Scott says flatly. “There is no way I’m eating you.”
“That’s what she said. Ha! You walked right into that one, Cyc. And it’s not like it’d be raw. Kind of seared to welldone, depends on how long you zapped it.”
“That’s-- I don’t--” Scott forces himself to take a deep breath. “I’m not resorting to cannibalism. Especially raw, because they’re not lasers, they’re force beams. They don’t burn things.”
“Are you sure?” Deadpool seems to be giving him a calculating look under the mask. “Who’s writing you this month? Have they read up on the back issues? Is their editor good? Because it totally happens, sometimes a writer screws up and gives you heat beam powers.”
“They’re force beams!” Scott snaps. “And stop that, there is no writer!”
Deadpool holds up his hands, gloved palms out, a scowl apparent through the mask. "Fine, go ahead and deny the existence of a higher power, see if I care if they smite you for it. Meanwhile, I'm just over here trying to keep Nate's dad from starving, so sue me." He very obviously settles back to sulk, arms crossed belligerently, bottom lip stuck out comically far.
A very tense and awkward silence falls in the pit. Up above a waning gibbous moon is rising and the glow is lighting the lip of the pit on one side. Scott tries to stop a shiver. The stone of the pit is cold, chill starting to sink through the thin material of the X-Men uniform he's wearing. No matter how high-tech the suits are, they still let the cold through eventually.
To try to shake off the chill, Scott climbs to his feet and starts walking the perimeter of the pit, fingers trailing across stone on his right-hand side. Or he would make a circuit of the pit, except he remembers there might be a puddle on the far side and takes a wide detour around the area so that his path resembles something more like the gibbous moon he'll soon be able to see in the sky.
He makes roughly ten circuits, ignoring Deadpool standing roughly in the center of the pit, still with his arms crossed. The other man is keeping completely still, so it's startling enough to make Scott jump when he suddenly speaks.
"You're sure they're force beams?"
"Very sure," Scott says through grit teeth.
"Hmm." There's a pause. "So, leaving aside how you constantly violate physics and Newton's third law, would it be fair to say if you hit something with those eye beams of yours, it's either going to go flying or break?"
"Yes."
"Is it also fair to say that if we don't get out of this pit, you're toast?"
"I’ll be fine. The X-Men will show up soon," Scott says stubbornly.
Deadpool makes a dubious sound. "They might, or they might not. If whoever chucked us in here knew they should put up a telepathic shield, they might be smart enough to hide you somewhere the rest of the X-Kid gang can't find."
"I don't like it either," Scott snaps, "but we don't have a lot of options. We can't climb out, so all we can do is wait."
"Well ... not exactly. We can't climb, but I bet you could blast me out."
Scott blinks. Blinks several more times.
"Excuse me?"
"Blast me out. You get down low, you take careful aim, calculate trajectories, let fire, bam! I go flying up and out of here. After a few minutes to groan and regrow any bits you knock off of me, I go scout around and find some way to get you out of here. Go teamwork!"
There are some gestures that accompany this description. Mostly one hand flying up in a graceful arc, then pretending to land on a hard surface and lie there twitching for a few seconds.
"That ... makes a lot of sense," Scott says, and hates the fact he just agreed with Deadpool.
Deadpool dancing around singing something about oh yeah, leader of the X-Men likes my idea, X-Men membership here I cooooome does not help with how much he regrets agreeing to the idea.
The plan is quickly put into action. Which is how Scott ends up crouching as low as he can, Deadpool looming over him and silhouetted against the moon-lit gray circle of the night sky above.
"Lean in a little more," Scott says, and Deadpool helpfully does so. "Ready?" He thinks he has the right angle. The desired trajectory seems realistic from here.
"Sure thing. Get me up, Daddy," and Scott hears the obnoxious grin in his voice.
"Ugh, shut up," he says, and fires.
The red blast from his visor ZARKs out, slamming into Deadpool and hurtling him up ... to slam into the lip of the pit about two feet below freedom. There's a fraction of a second pause and then Deadpool's body falls straight down to land with a squelching whomp.
Scott winces.
"Oops," he says weakly. Is it possible he had lowered his head just a fraction at the last moment, a childish, emotional response to Wade's inane joke? He banishes the question and any quiet misgivings that his conscience might be trying to have.
He approaches the groaning shape of Deadpool cautiously.
"Ow. Ooooow. Ouch. Don't mind me," Deadpool grunts. "Just taking a minute to regenerate here. Think I broke my spine, that always takes an extra little … bit ... ow. Owowowow and there are the shooty nerve pains oooooooowie like that, ouch, while nerves are growing back. But hey, the cracked skull's already better, I'll be ready to try again in just a minute!"
Scott watches with a sort of nauseated fascination as Deadpool squirms and grunts and curses and finally manages to roll to hands and knees, pauses a few moments, then heaves himself to his feet, stretching and cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders like he's getting all his muscles and joints settled back in place. Honestly, Scott is familiar with that routine--he's seen Logan do it countless times. He's struck once more by how different the two are and yet how similar.
Finally Deadpool declares himself ready to try again. This time he doesn’t make any jokes at the last moment and Scott compensates for his previous inaccurate aim. Perhaps overcompensates; this time Deadpool clears the lip of the pit by over six feet. There’s a crash, a loud whoop, some cursing, then silence … and eventually Deadpool’s head appears silhouetted against the night sky.
“Sit tight, Cyc, I’ll be back in a few minutes. Or maybe tomorrow. Who knows! But I promise I’ll get you out of there!”
And then he disappears.
Scott grimaces and goes to sit down against the wall of the pit again.
When he gets out of here, Jean is going to tease him so much about this. And then she’ll probably tell Logan, and Logan will needle him too. He groans at the thought. And then, he thinks grimly, he is going to track Nate down and ask him point-blank if Deadpool’s ramblings about them having a telepathic bond were ever true.
Suddenly he realizes that he’s no longer thinking about the possibility of dying down here. With horror he understands that he fully expects Deadpool to save him somehow, to rescue him or bring rescuers or maybe do something completely ridiculous and unexpected like fill the pit with … with … hot fudge or something. Scott’s brain can’t even begin to come up with an idea that seems insane enough for what Deadpool’s capable of. And yet. And yet. He’s sure the man will get the job done.
He groans and rests his head on his knees.
When Jean reads this revelation out of his head, she’s never going to let him live it down.