Chapter Text
The ice rink, Wade’s second home. A place where he spent more time than at home or his work at St Margaret's bar. A place where he could let go of all of life's dramas and just dance his heart out.
Until he saw him.
The hockey team's new player, Logan. A stoic, keeps to himself, Hugh Jackman looking man.
His crush started as all crushes do, accidentally walking into the man.
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A training session with Coach Cable awaited the Team X Force Figure Skaters. It was going to be a tough session for the group as a national competition was coming up, too quickly for anyone's liking, and there was still so much work to be done. From perfecting new techniques to ensuring each movement aligned with the music they had each chosen. Each session was more draining than the last so a coffee run for the group was an essential part of their pre-session motivation.
“Have you finally settled on a version of your song yet, Wade?” Asked Peter, Wade's Best Friend™. He wasn't a skater, unlike the rest of the group he had no balance at all, but he was super invested in his friends' sport. Having learnt so much about figure skating, he was able to give tips about what types of things other skaters around the world did, so they could take that and add it to their own performance. A complimentary X Force member.
“Yeah Wade there's like a month to go and Cable’s going to be up your ass about it until you choose one. How many versions of ‘bleed it out’ can there possibly be anyways?” Ellie said. One of the younger members of the group who almost always used pyrotechnics in her routines. Negasonic Warhead was her stage name and she embodied it completely in her dance.
“Well if you must know it's gonna be the Halocene / Lauren Babic version, it's gonna sound so good on the rinks speakers and just feels so powerful. It's gonna be epic” Wade gestured with his arms to enhance the epicness that this song was surely going to be.
“Oh I think I’ve heard that version!” Yukio chimed in. A polar opposite of her girlfriend Ellie, both in personality and on the rink. Whilst Ellie was so explosive and energetic in her performances; Yukio was graceful and agile, loving to use props like stick ribbons to enhance her movements.
“Cable will be happy to hear that. Glad we can hear the end to your constant arguments,” A gruff and heavily russian accented Piotr replied. Truely a gentle giant in the rink, loving to dance in pairs and use his muscles to throw other dancers around in lifts that the slimmer men in duo dances struggled with. “Let’s head over to tell him the good news.”
Leaving the nearby Starbucks, the group made their way over to the ice rinks building. The large double doored entrance could be seen as soon as they left the coffee house. Steps lined the entrance and it wasn’t long before the group were at the doors. Wade and Peter were first to the doors and an unfortunate sight greeted them.
The hockey team must have just finished a practice session and were making their way towards the entrance. Team manager and team leader, Jean and Scott, lead the group like the power couple they are. Behind them are Beast and Storm, followed by the rest of the team.
Scott and Wade had issues with each other since they first met at the rink so many years ago, thinking Scott was arrogant and had a stick up his arse. He didn't really know what Scott thought of him but both men clearly didn't like each other. Many fights occurred in these hallways during their teenage years however they mostly hated on each other from a distance now they were adults.
Both giving each other the middle finger as they walked past was the most civil they could be towards each other. With Jean and Peter both rolling their eyes at the sight of two grown men being so childish to each other.
“Ugh that guy, I can’t believe they still let him in the building.” Wade exclaims, Peter is sure that Jean just heard the same thing from Scott too. He heard almost exactly the same thing every time the two happened to come across each other.
The hockey team continued to stomp by like a herd of elephants, Wade and Scott still bitching to their Peter / Jean about the other.
“Like seriously, he doesn't know when to grow up and stop acting like an immature little shi–”
Someone had just bashed into his shoulder, pushing him into Peter and almost onto the floor. He spun around to confront the person but stopped dead in his tracks. This man was clearly part of the hockey team based on his uniform, but he was a new face, one Wade hadn’t seen before. A man slightly smaller than himself but infinitely more muscled, with hair so fluffy there's no way that's natural and such a gruff looking expression on a carbon copy of Hugh Jackman’s face.
Wade was quiet for the first time in who knows how many years. His mind raced at the sight of the man before him. Canonically pansexual Wade and his brain went into overdrive and shut down almost instantaneously. Awestruck is how he’ll categorise this moment in the future.
“Shit sorry my bad, I wasn’t looking where I was going, you okay?” asked possibly the most handsome man Wade had ever laid eyes on, in the most rugged voice he had ever heard.
“Uh yeah… yeah I’m all good, no worries.” Wade said, still shook by the sight of the man before him.
“That's good then, sorry again.” The man turned and carried on walking with the rest of the team who didn't seem to notice the accident and carried on without the man.
Wade stood there for a second before turning towards Peter and silently began walking towards the changing room like he was before his life practically changed forever.
“You okay there buddy, not heard you this quiet in a long time”. Peter said after a few moments of silence between the pair.
“Holy Marvel Jesus himself, who is that guy? Why is he so hot, where did he come from, how have I never seen him before, why is he so hot?!” Wade spoke almost too fast for Peter to be able to listen too.
“He’s the new guy for the hockey team, remember they had a couple people transfer out? He transferred in from like Canada or Alaska, somewhere cold. Scott found out his old team called him Wolverine and well you know how much Scott-lops loves to give his team nicknames.” Peter spoke, how did he know so much about the hockey team anyways. Wade thought about the weird nicknames like beast, storm, and nightcrawler that Scott, aka cyclops, referred to his team as.
“Doesn’t answer the question of why the hell is he so hot? Cos hot damn.”
Peter just laughed at that point, not really knowing how else to respond.
“Fuck I hope he sticks around, might even go to a hockey game to watch cos damn my voice cannot keep up with my brain right now.” Wade was not gonna have a fun practice session today,
“Get your head in the game Wade. Your crush will still exist after training.” Piotr said, not being subtle about hearing Wade’s million-word-an-hour word train about how hot he found the Wolverine.
“Aye aye Captain, wait I’m not crushing on the guy! I only just got ran into by him!”
All four of the group rolled their eyes and left the changing room leaving Wade behind yelling after them ‘It's not a crush!’.
“Shit it might be a crush.” Wade whispered to himself.