Work Text:
Wade stretched on his couch.
Now this was the life. Four walls, television, and enough money left from his last job to buy enough chimichangas and pizza to last months.
The last job that he definitely wasn’t thinking about. Definitely wasn’t sulking over.
Nope.
Life was good.
He wasn’t thinking about time travelling mutants with daddy issues.
Not even a little bit.
“All is well,” he told himself as he flipped through the channels.
Two seconds before the room faded out and he bodyslid away.
XXX
“Hello Nate Nathan Nathaniel Nateackula Priscilla Summertime Hits Ask-Any-Son.” Okay, maybe he’d overdone it on the names, but he was pissed. He stood in the middle of Nathan’s living room in Providence with folded arms.
Cable looked at him.
Deadpool didn’t notice how pale Nathan was. How he looked like he hadn’t slept in weeks, eaten in days.
Wade didn’t even notice how his usually perfect hair was a mess, showing signs of being run through with fingers repeatedly.
“I need your help.” Cable said simply.
Wade choked out a laugh. “You need my help.”
Cable’s face twitched slightly, and wasn’t that a surprise.
“I mean, here I was thinking that you were all perfect. Isn’t that why you dumped me in the first place?”
Nathan gave him an exasperated look. “I didn’t ‘dump’ you.”
“No, you just served me up with a side of salad.”
“You know I didn’t-”
“Oh no, poor Summers,” Wade moaned, “Didn’t have a choice, didn’t mean to hurt his only friend, didn’t think I’d end up carved up on a platter.”
Cable sighed and folded his arms, waiting him out.
“Literally carved!” Wade told Cable. “And you knew! You knew, you knew and you did it on purpose. You know, I’ve heard of manipulative friends, but you’ve taken it too far.”
He paused, glaring at Cable, who continued his silence. “Tyrion Lannister level manipulations, Nate. The Time Lord, the Master. Mara of the Acoma level shit.”
Another silence.
“And I’m not even sure if those things are popular yet, what year is it? Well, the Master like Third Doctor stuff, you know, I’m pretty sure that’s the start of him, there was that Time Monk person with the first Doctor, but they’re different, then again, I’m pretty sure the comics and books and stuff made them like in a band at the Academy, and then of course there’s that Tenth Doctor stuff with ‘oh he looked into time and went crazy’ which they also retconned, but like in real world chronology it was the Third Doctor, so that’s the seventies, probably. Doctor Who’s chronology is almost as bad as ours.”
Nothing.
“And of course, they’ve like overwritten their own universe a bunch of times, what with the Daleks and all, and then there was that Time War, don’t get me started.”
Wade took Cable’s continued silence as getting him started.
“Like they added it in just to cause drama. And the wives thing? He spent the first what, seven incarnations, over twenty years, as an aromantic asexual, pretty sure his whole species were asexuals, and then there’s the American movie and whoops reboot where all he can think about are girls over a millennia younger than him. Urggh. And yeah suddenly they’re dropping all these hints about his family, when it’s common knowledge that Susan isn’t even supposed to be his granddaughter, that there was an arc planned where it would say she wasn’t related to him, it’s in audio book form now, but it’s canon that they aren’t actually related, didn’t they try and erase their relationship in the Five Doctor’s special anyway? Susan is not the Doctor’s granddaughter, he rescued her and basically adopted her, he was supposed to be a loner, but no now he has a wife and a brother, and his mother and children and his two.five mistresses and oooh so much angst. It went from a family show about aliens and adventure to a show targeted towards teens, with romance and sexual tension. I don’t care what the advertising says.” He crossed his arms. “Hmmph.”
No response.
Two could play this game.
“And the Time Lords weren’t even that important in Classic Who, like the Doctor hated them, they were always interfering, sending him on missions, and the Time Lords rarely thought of him, until that time they made him President, but then he ran away, like there was no love lost, but they were cool, like fun, and interesting and then they decide to kill them off in order to have some interesting premise, as if Doctor Who wasn’t interesting already, as if they couldn’t have started with a typical Doctor Who story, no it’s death to Time Lords and the Daleks, like what the hell was that?”
Cable’s lips thinned.
“And their first villain was the Autons, which was like the first villain of the Third Doctor. Ridiculous. Either be original or do something from the First Doctor, though the first villains were cavemen, and the second were Daleks which they killed off. The Tenth and Eleventh did it right, and though technically Twelfth didn’t, that story was kickass. Oh wait, I suppose it’s Thirteen then. Fourteenth really. But we’re keeping the numbers the same and leaving War Doctor as Eight-point-Five, so I was right the first time.” He paused. “Isn’t it weird how we number them? Like we could call them Tennant-Doctor and Smith-Doctor, oh but wait, there’s two Bakers, guess that’s a problem, damn the repetitive nature of common surnames. Oh and there’s two Peter’s too. Names are stupid.” He thought for a second. “There are like three Peter Superheroes too, but no one named Baker. Then again, I don’t know the identity of every superhero. Banner’s pretty close though. Oh, hey did you know I have the same last name as the Falcon? Wait, I’m angry at you, you don’t get to know my last name.”
“I already know your last name.”
“Yeah but you don’t get to hear me talk about it. Can I go home now?”
“No.”
“Fine. You wanna spend all night listening to Doctor Who trivia, that’s fine. Ooh I just remembered, there is a canon brother of the Doctor in the audio books, but he’s a bad guy.” He hummed. “Bad guys as brothers. Common trope. Like…” he paused. “Spock!” He declared happily. “Yes. Spock’s half brother, bad guy. Hmm. Logan’s brother is too. Your clone-brother. Tyrion’s sister Cersei. Worf’s brother was kinda a dick, I think. Data’s brother. Allen’s twin sister, Riliane, sorta, almost, kinda. Gosh, ain’t mothy great? Loved the new albums, especially the one with ‘Journey of Two Mages’. Though I’m still not sure how I feel about Banica after Drug of Gold. Ooh, fun fact, it’s called Drug of Gold cos mothy wanted it to spell DOG, so it’s that instead of a Japanese name. But yeah, like Evil Food Eater Conchita was my favourite song, who doesn’t want a song about the incarnation of Gluttony eating her chef and servants, but now she and the chef were in love? I dunno, it might be a bit much even for me.” He shook his head. “But then again it’s so cute-”
“Are you done?”
Deadpool fell short. “Are you sending me home?”
“No.”
“Then no. I mean,” he continued. “Was Food Eater my favourite? Like the Tailor Shop one was my favourite at first, but the Food Eater one has such a catchy starting…Hmm, probably losing the audience. I wonder if there’s any new Junjou Romantica out. Or anything by CLAMP. You know, xxxHolic started up again.” He hummed. “Haven’t been keeping up with Castle or Elementary. I heard Shamy broke up in Big Bang Theory. I’m a bit outta the loop, you know, since the torture.” He shot Cable a look. “There’s a new Harry Potter movie in the works though.”
“Wade.”
Deadpool gave him a pointed look, probably reinforced by his masklessness. “Home. Now.” He couldn’t just bodyslide home, because he’d still be stuck with the problem of Nathan Priscilla Summers.
How do you solve a problem like Priscilla?
“Tell me how to make it up to you.”
“How about saying please.”
“Please help me save the universe.”
“Do it yourself.”
“I can’t. I…” he hesitated.
“You nuked your powers again.” Wade filled in the blanks accusingly.
Cable flushed ever so slightly, rubbing the back of his neck. “Unfortunately.”
“Let me guess. You were saving a cat from a tree. Or a girl from a balloon. An old woman from the dangers of crossing the road alone.”
Nate glared at him. “Something like that,” he muttered.
“So I’m not even your first choice!”
“That’s not-”
“Wade Wilson, last reserve.” He scoffed. “No deal.”
“I’ll pay you.”
“I may not have dignity, or honour, or self-respect, but I can hold a grudge.” He turned his back on Cable. “Which I’m doing now.”
Cable sighed and closed the distance between the two of them. Deadpool could feel his body heat behind him.
“I need your help Wade,” he said solemnly.
Wade hmphed.
“The universe needs your help.”
Wade made another noise and stepped forward.
Cable changed tacks. “I thought we were friends.”
“Friends don’t let other friends get tortured.”
Cable searched his memory. “In Sherlock-”
“Oh no!” Wade turned around. “You do not get to use references. I don’t care what half-assed example you have.”
Cable sighed. “We both know you’re going to help me.”
“Do we? I don’t.”
“You’re a good person Wade.”
“If I were good, my best friend wouldn’t have let me get tortured-”
“To save the world? Yes he would.”
“If the best friend was a dick.”
“Guess I’m a dick then.”
Wade’s eyes unconsciously roved over Cable’s body. It had been a while since he’d been up close and personal with the Messiah. “That’s what I was going to say,” Wade informed him, remeeting his eyes.
Cable made a show of rolling his. “I guess we’re finishing each others sentences.”
“You romantic you.”
“Will you help?”
“Not for all the tea in China.” He pulled away. “Which I never understood. Like America has tea too. And good old England. Jolly old Britain. Whichever saying is more relevant nowadays.” He waved his hand. “Like who’d want all the tea in China anyway? Is it already made tea? If not, shouldn’t it be ‘all the tea leaves’ or ‘all the tea bags’? And if so, wouldn’t they all go cold before you could drink it? Who’d want a million million cups of cold tea? You can’t just stick that stuff in the refrigerato-”
Cable had grabbed his arms and pulled him back to face him.
“Hey!”
“Wade, we don’t have time for this.”
Cable had his serious face off.
“Damn right we don’t. There’s a Maude marathon on in an hour and Bea Arthur won’t watch herself.”
Cable was examining him closely.
Wade shifted. “Getting a little close there, baby blues.”
Nate blinked those baby blues at him and leant closer.
Wade squirmed in his grip. “Nate?”
Nate hummed and pushed a soft kiss against his lips.
Wade’s eyes widened. “This is not how you negotiate, Nathan Summers.” He was too stunned to come up with a good stupid name. “How could you fall to such tactics?”
“No tactics.”
Wade made a strangled noise. “No, kissing the ex-best friend who you need to convince to work for you is perfectly normal.”
Cable was still giving him that soul-searching look. “We’re not normal.”
“No, we’re freaking out right about now. Is this about that sunscreen fantasy? Cos I swear that wasn’t what it seemed. I just have a sunscreen fetish, is all. You know, gotta make sure my skin doesn’t get any worse.” He gave a weak chuckle. Cable’s grip didn’t loosen. In fact, it tightened when Wade mentioned his skin condition.
“Wade, I don’t care about how you look.”
“No, no, that’s how Messiah’s roll right? Jesus hung out with a bunch of sick people. Course, he healed them, but I won’t hold that against you-”
“Did you expect me to heal you?”
“What? No, I’m not crazy. Well, I am, but I’m not stupid. Well, I am that too, but I’m not…Can we start this again?”
“Okay.” Cable kissed him again.
“Not from there!” Wade cried outraged. “I mean from the me being angry at you for getting me tortured.”
Nate sighed. “You’d rather yell at me than kiss me?” A glint appeared in his one good eye.
“Well…” Wade shook his head. “It’s a ruse! No one would kiss this,” he tried to gesture to his face, “if they had a choice.”
“I just did.”
Wade groaned. “Which means you didn’t have a choice. You’re exploiting the fact that your body is muscular and perfect and wonderful and-”
“Perfect.”
Wade frowned. “Already said that.”
“Maybe I like you.”
“If you liked me, you wouldn’t have let me get tortured. Unless you’re into that sorta thing, which is cool I mean, no judgement, but we didn’t set a safety word and that’s just bad etique-”
It was the third time in the past ten minutes that Cable’s lips had found Wade’s and Wade was beginning to like it.
“I had no choice,” Cable said softly.
Wade’s heart dropped and he tried (just as futilely) to pull away. “See, I knew it, No-Choice-Nate.”
“But,” Cable continued, as if there wasn’t a 210lbs man wrestling with him, “I wanted to kiss you.”
“Liar.” But there was no anger in his voice. Cable was doing puppy eyes and it was hard to remember to be angry at that. Where had he learnt puppy eyes? Not from Irene certainly. Maybe his father had been giving him lessons. No wait, that was ridiculous, no one’s seen Cyks eyes since he hit puberty. Maybe it was his Uncle Logan. Wolverine could definitely give puppy eyes when he wanted too, it was in the name. Were wolverines related to dogs? Probably, right?
One of Cable’s hands, the flesh one, left Wade’s arm to stroke his face.
Wade wanted to get mad. Too far. Kissing, fine, maybe hell had frozen over. But wanting to touch his face? Too far bro, too far.
Instead he closed his eyes and sighed softly, leaning into the touch.
Cable’s hand trailed around his face, over his closed eyes and lips and hummed. He placed a kiss or two against his neck. Then he groaned in annoyance.
Wade’s eyes fluttered open.
“I have to go,” Cable told him regretfully.
“Oh.” Wade said in a small voice.
Cable stepped away and rubbed the back of his neck. “I’ll see you later then.” He shrugged exaggeratedly. “If I survive.”
Wade narrowed his eyes. “If I…help you…we get to continue this?”
Cable gave a half smile. “Of course.”
Wade’s face scrunched up, thinking.
Cable began walking towards the door.
“I’ll help.” The words stumbled out of his mouth.
Cable raised an eyebrow. “I thought you were mad at me.”
“I am.” Wade nodded. “But I’m horny too.” He nodded again and skipped towards Cable, taking his hand and kissing his cheek. “Besides, wait till Domino and Irene find out you’re paying me with sex!”
He darted in front of Cable and through the door.
Cable shook his head and wondered what he’d gotten himself into.