[Cable & Deadpool] &^@* this $#!%
For a bit of light relief between big projects, I thought I'd have a crack at one of the unfulfilled prompts off the kink meme - specifically one asking for Deadpool using his fourth-wall-breaking powers to 'fix' what the comics have done with him and Cable since their joint series ended.
This would have been lighter relief if it hadn't required me to actually read a couple of recent Cable chapters for material. While I must admit this did give me a certain amount of fun making stupid macros and horrifying friends*, I really miss the days when Cable's series was intentionally hilarious, rather than just unintentionally so.
*"Oh hey, now Cable's being eaten by a giant space whale! Now Bishop's being tentacle raped by aliens! Did I mention the same aliens can track Hope across a galaxy but don't know she exists when she's a couple of dozen metres away? IN SOVIET MARVEL, SHARK JUMPS YOU!"
Title: &^@* this $#!%
Summary: Deadpool takes it on himself to 'fix' the current Marvel status quo. With extreme prejudice.
Characters/Pairing: Cable/Deadpool, Hope
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2120
Cable ground his teeth as the Brood army closed in from both sides. Things were going from bad to worse. Hope was missing. The appearance of the Brood may have distracted Bishop just long enough, but now he was trapped on this ship with both the aliens and a would-be suicide-bomber, and if either of them found Hope before he did...
Cable hadn't gotten to the end of that thought before there was an ear-splitting noise, like a projectile punching through thick glass, and something that came out of nowhere hit him and bowled him over. His first thought was that a new wave of Brood must have breached the ship's hull right on top of him, but the thing that had hit him - that was now keeping him from getting up by sitting on him - had distinctly humanly fleshy legs, a red and black costume, and - this part took even longer to make sense of - was waving a comic book in his face.
His name was on the cover. There was a picture of him underneath it, or possibly an over-inflated blow-up doll based loosely on his likeness, it was hard to be sure when the image was being shaken around so furiously.
“Aliens?!” said a voice. “I've been real patient with your whole midlife crisis - most people run off with a girl half their age in a sports car instead of buying a time machine and adopting your own freaking mother, but you never were 'most people' - and this is me being very patient. But now you're fighting aliens and I don't even get an invite? Not even a postcard? Not even a, 'Hi Wade, having the fight of my life, wish you were here'? How could you forget how many years I've been trying to get 'Aliens vs. Deadpool' off the ground? That's not just cold, that's where I am drawing the line.”
“Deadpool?!” Cable couldn't believe his eyes. Hadn't he seen Deadpool die? He couldn't remember anyone checking to make sure - come to that, he couldn't remember giving the mercenary a second thought afterwards, but it was only Deadpool.
“And now he makes out like he can't even remember my first name in the morning!” Deadpool threw his arms up, then slammed them down to the floor, either side of the body he was sitting on, leaning right into in Cable's face. “This is what they cancelled our series for? Well you know what I say to that? Fuck. That. Shit. Ha! Did you see that? Did you see any little squiggly symbols? See any little stars or hash signs? No! You know what that means, Nate? We're flying free of censorship now! And so's you know for next time, when someone comes crashing clean through the fourth wall breaking every real or imaginary physical law there is to save your arse, it's traditional to say 'thanks'. So I didn't bring Sigourney Weaver herself, but I am totally the next best thing. Sometimes my supporting cast even makes it out alive!”
Cable let all the insane babble wash over him. Something tingled low in his stomach - frustration, he told himself firmly, urgency at worst - as he groped for an explanation. Had Deadpool's 'death' been just a sadistic trick to put him off his guard? They should have known to make sure.
“What... how?” he murmured - but he knew the answer - Deadpool was obviously working for the Brood - or worse, working for Bishop.
He flinched at the sight of Deadpool's fist coming towards his head, but the blow he'd expected merely turned into him being tapped lightly on the side of his skull.
“Hello? Anyone home? Are we all listening up the back? They're not watching, you can knock off that tough-guy act aaaaaany time now. You're not seriously still holding that thing with your evil twin against me, are you? Isn't it time we admitted we both know I only did it to make you jealous so we can move past it already?”
Cable tried to shove him off, but the mercenary was making himself inexplicably hard to shift. “Deadpool, I don't know how you got here or what you're playing at, but I do not have time for it -”
“Oh come on, there's no way this is in continuity. We've got all the time in the world!”
“-and I am not going to let you get in my way.”
Deadpool whistled. “Man oh man, that new writer really tattooed his name on your unmentionables, huh, Nate? But the thing you gotta remember about writers is they come and they go, and the guys upstairs don't give a hoot as long and you and me are still making them a big bucket of money each month, and if we have to be edgy and controversial and prepared to throw the status quo into the blender every other week to keep people's attention, well, two can play at that, so why shouldn't I take a few risks? And speaking of risks, here's what I really wanna know: you tell me why...”
Whatever Deadpool had meant to say next was lost as the nearest Brood took the opportunity to grab him from behind.
“Hey!” Deadpool complained, “I was just getting to the good bit! Don't you xenos have any sense of dramatic timing?”
“You are not human,” hissed the Brood. “We sense your power.”
“Watch where you're sensing with that! I am so human!” Deadpool struggled, he seemed to be trying to reach something tucked into his belt. “Okay okay, a bit not human, but I had legitimate professional and medical reasons, and anyway, like you can talk!”
“You will give birth to future generations of the Brood.”
“Uh-huh. Right. Maybe you could work on that pick-up line a little, and I could let you down gently because I am never going to be that desperate. I do not do mpreg on a first date!”
There was the sound of a gunshot, and the Brood screamed and recoiled, letting Deadpool free.
“Nate!” Deadpool cried happily, getting to his feet. “I knew you still cared!”
Cable stared down at the smoking end of his gun in confusion. Everything had happened so fast - he'd seen Deadpool needing help and had reacted without thinking. And he didn't even understand why.
The remaining Brood suffered no such uncertainty. “Your weapons are useless against us!”
Deadpool turned away from Cable again with a certain reluctance. “Okay, one, didn't a little girl with a sharpened toothpick take out one of you a couple of pages back? And two, you think I'd come all this way if I wasn't kitted out for the kicking of alien booty?” He fished through a couple of pouches until he found one containing a neatly folded sheet of paper. “Uh, don't answer that one like you know me, just assume the answer should be 'no', and that next time I do this I'm going to remember to bring a superweapon I can yank out dramatically. Um. Maybe you could all just turn around until I'm done unfolding this so we can save the surprise? I'm going for a big double-page spread here, the set-up's kinda important...”
“We outnumber you a thousand to one. You have nothing that can threaten us.”
“Hey, that'll do. Ahem!” Deadpool brandished the newly unfolded document proudly at the alien. “How about a copyright infringement notice from 20th Century Fox? Read it and weep! 'Inspired by' the Alien franchise, my butt!”
The sound of every Brood in the room screaming at the top of its insectoid lungs and dissolving into a pile of ash echoed in Cable's ears for several minutes. Deadpool looked pleased with himself. Cable stared in disbelief.
“What did you do?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Never let anyone tell you the right document landing on the right desk at the right moment can't work wonders, Nate my old buddy!” Deadpool declared. “100% counterfeit, but by the time they figure that out you can bet the 'no writing any more Brood until we clear this up DO NOT EVEN THINK IT THIS MEANS YOU' memo will already be out there and too late to call back! It'll buy us at least an issue, maybe more!
“So Nate, as I was saying, before I got interrupted by bugboy there,” Deadpool continued, pulling up his mask and advancing on Cable with the inevitability of a tidal wave, “You tell me why a third-stringer like bleeping Shatterstar is the only nineties-Liefeld-creation getting any hot guy-on-guy action lately.”
And with that, Deadpool threw both arms around Cable's neck and kissed him on the lips.
The next few minutes were... blurry. Tongue was definitely involved. Almost definitely two tongues. Hands wandered into places they had not been invited but found themselves immediately welcome. The tingling returned, now a few crucial inches further down.
Cable pulled back at last to find himself looking into the face of the best friend he'd ever had - a friend who should have been more - who, incredibly, still wanted to be more despite half a dozen things Cable couldn't believe he'd said or done.
“Wade?” Cable tried, two sets of dizzyingly contradictory memories warring in his head. “What was I...”
Deadpool patted him reassuringly - on the arse, as it happened, but it was still generally reassuring. “It's cool, I mostly forgive you. Not many of us can fight editorial mandate - even I had to recruit fanfic writers off an anonymeme to get this far. Officially my new favourite word. A-non-knee-meeeeeme. Mememe. Hee.”
“Fight... what?”
Deadpool waved a hand. “Selective memories. Insufficient fact checking. Underspecified retcons. Creative reinterpretation. Or uncreative if you want my opinion. The whole works.” He looked up into Cable's face and seemed to take pity on him. “Tell you what, don't think about it too hard. Let's call it all repressed trauma after what happened with Providence, handwave the details and get moving before I forget how I did that awesome fourth wall thing that got me here.”
Cable stared at him blankly.
“Would it make you feel better if I called it a... uh, time-travelling remote-controlled bodyslide thing?” Wade suggested.
“You have a way out of here?”
“You have anything to stick around for? C'mon!”
Wade stepped back, pulling Cable along with him by the wrist, and for a couple of blissful seconds Cable actually followed him before one small, important bit of the new reality came crashing down on him.
“Wade, wait,” Cable twisted his arm to grip Wade's and tugged back. “Hope.”
“Oh. Right.” Wade came guiltily to a stop. “Hope. No leaving without the rugrat. Any idea where you left her?” When Cable couldn't immediately give him an answer, he pulled out the comic from before and turned a few pages. “We're pretty far off script now, but according to this she should be right around...”
“Nathan? What happened?” said a voice - a small voice, belonging to a small head that was peering around a doorway. A wiry knot of tension that had been nesting under Cable's chest eased swiftly away.
“...here?” Wade finished. “Hey there, kid! Wait, do I have to pretend like I don't know you for continuity reasons? I can never keep track.”
Hope looked from Cable to Deadpool and back again. “Isn't he...?”
“It's alright, Hope,” Cable told her, “he's here to help.” It almost came out, here to stay. Either would have fitted.
“Was he the one who made all those monsters disappear?” Hope guessed, catching on quickly.
“You betcha! Be good, and maybe I'll teach you how someday!”
“Wade,” Cable warned.
“What, I get to spoil her at least a little bit, don't I? I've got all those birthdays to make up for!”
“We'll discuss it later,” Cable said firmly.
“Later,” Wade agreed, and crouched down so he could talk to Hope face to face. “So kid, you ready to go home?”
“Home?” Hope asked, puzzled.
“You'll know it when you see it, promise,” said Wade, patting her on the head. He turned back to Cable. “How 'bout you? Splattered the aliens, rescued the little girl, kissed the hot guy, did I miss anything?”
You really did know it when you saw it, Cable thought. And you often didn't realise you'd how much you'd been missing it until it was staring you in the face.
“You and I,” he warned, “are still going to have a long conversation about exactly it was you thought you were doing here-”
“As long as it involves the word thank you somewhere. Do you know how screwed Hope's gonna be if she has to learn her manners from me?”
“-after we get back.” Cable finished. “I'm ready. Take us home.”
This would have been lighter relief if it hadn't required me to actually read a couple of recent Cable chapters for material. While I must admit this did give me a certain amount of fun making stupid macros and horrifying friends*, I really miss the days when Cable's series was intentionally hilarious, rather than just unintentionally so.
*"Oh hey, now Cable's being eaten by a giant space whale! Now Bishop's being tentacle raped by aliens! Did I mention the same aliens can track Hope across a galaxy but don't know she exists when she's a couple of dozen metres away? IN SOVIET MARVEL, SHARK JUMPS YOU!"
Title: &^@* this $#!%
Summary: Deadpool takes it on himself to 'fix' the current Marvel status quo. With extreme prejudice.
Characters/Pairing: Cable/Deadpool, Hope
Rating: PG
Word Count: 2120
Cable ground his teeth as the Brood army closed in from both sides. Things were going from bad to worse. Hope was missing. The appearance of the Brood may have distracted Bishop just long enough, but now he was trapped on this ship with both the aliens and a would-be suicide-bomber, and if either of them found Hope before he did...
Cable hadn't gotten to the end of that thought before there was an ear-splitting noise, like a projectile punching through thick glass, and something that came out of nowhere hit him and bowled him over. His first thought was that a new wave of Brood must have breached the ship's hull right on top of him, but the thing that had hit him - that was now keeping him from getting up by sitting on him - had distinctly humanly fleshy legs, a red and black costume, and - this part took even longer to make sense of - was waving a comic book in his face.
His name was on the cover. There was a picture of him underneath it, or possibly an over-inflated blow-up doll based loosely on his likeness, it was hard to be sure when the image was being shaken around so furiously.
“Aliens?!” said a voice. “I've been real patient with your whole midlife crisis - most people run off with a girl half their age in a sports car instead of buying a time machine and adopting your own freaking mother, but you never were 'most people' - and this is me being very patient. But now you're fighting aliens and I don't even get an invite? Not even a postcard? Not even a, 'Hi Wade, having the fight of my life, wish you were here'? How could you forget how many years I've been trying to get 'Aliens vs. Deadpool' off the ground? That's not just cold, that's where I am drawing the line.”
“Deadpool?!” Cable couldn't believe his eyes. Hadn't he seen Deadpool die? He couldn't remember anyone checking to make sure - come to that, he couldn't remember giving the mercenary a second thought afterwards, but it was only Deadpool.
“And now he makes out like he can't even remember my first name in the morning!” Deadpool threw his arms up, then slammed them down to the floor, either side of the body he was sitting on, leaning right into in Cable's face. “This is what they cancelled our series for? Well you know what I say to that? Fuck. That. Shit. Ha! Did you see that? Did you see any little squiggly symbols? See any little stars or hash signs? No! You know what that means, Nate? We're flying free of censorship now! And so's you know for next time, when someone comes crashing clean through the fourth wall breaking every real or imaginary physical law there is to save your arse, it's traditional to say 'thanks'. So I didn't bring Sigourney Weaver herself, but I am totally the next best thing. Sometimes my supporting cast even makes it out alive!”
Cable let all the insane babble wash over him. Something tingled low in his stomach - frustration, he told himself firmly, urgency at worst - as he groped for an explanation. Had Deadpool's 'death' been just a sadistic trick to put him off his guard? They should have known to make sure.
“What... how?” he murmured - but he knew the answer - Deadpool was obviously working for the Brood - or worse, working for Bishop.
He flinched at the sight of Deadpool's fist coming towards his head, but the blow he'd expected merely turned into him being tapped lightly on the side of his skull.
“Hello? Anyone home? Are we all listening up the back? They're not watching, you can knock off that tough-guy act aaaaaany time now. You're not seriously still holding that thing with your evil twin against me, are you? Isn't it time we admitted we both know I only did it to make you jealous so we can move past it already?”
Cable tried to shove him off, but the mercenary was making himself inexplicably hard to shift. “Deadpool, I don't know how you got here or what you're playing at, but I do not have time for it -”
“Oh come on, there's no way this is in continuity. We've got all the time in the world!”
“-and I am not going to let you get in my way.”
Deadpool whistled. “Man oh man, that new writer really tattooed his name on your unmentionables, huh, Nate? But the thing you gotta remember about writers is they come and they go, and the guys upstairs don't give a hoot as long and you and me are still making them a big bucket of money each month, and if we have to be edgy and controversial and prepared to throw the status quo into the blender every other week to keep people's attention, well, two can play at that, so why shouldn't I take a few risks? And speaking of risks, here's what I really wanna know: you tell me why...”
Whatever Deadpool had meant to say next was lost as the nearest Brood took the opportunity to grab him from behind.
“Hey!” Deadpool complained, “I was just getting to the good bit! Don't you xenos have any sense of dramatic timing?”
“You are not human,” hissed the Brood. “We sense your power.”
“Watch where you're sensing with that! I am so human!” Deadpool struggled, he seemed to be trying to reach something tucked into his belt. “Okay okay, a bit not human, but I had legitimate professional and medical reasons, and anyway, like you can talk!”
“You will give birth to future generations of the Brood.”
“Uh-huh. Right. Maybe you could work on that pick-up line a little, and I could let you down gently because I am never going to be that desperate. I do not do mpreg on a first date!”
There was the sound of a gunshot, and the Brood screamed and recoiled, letting Deadpool free.
“Nate!” Deadpool cried happily, getting to his feet. “I knew you still cared!”
Cable stared down at the smoking end of his gun in confusion. Everything had happened so fast - he'd seen Deadpool needing help and had reacted without thinking. And he didn't even understand why.
The remaining Brood suffered no such uncertainty. “Your weapons are useless against us!”
Deadpool turned away from Cable again with a certain reluctance. “Okay, one, didn't a little girl with a sharpened toothpick take out one of you a couple of pages back? And two, you think I'd come all this way if I wasn't kitted out for the kicking of alien booty?” He fished through a couple of pouches until he found one containing a neatly folded sheet of paper. “Uh, don't answer that one like you know me, just assume the answer should be 'no', and that next time I do this I'm going to remember to bring a superweapon I can yank out dramatically. Um. Maybe you could all just turn around until I'm done unfolding this so we can save the surprise? I'm going for a big double-page spread here, the set-up's kinda important...”
“We outnumber you a thousand to one. You have nothing that can threaten us.”
“Hey, that'll do. Ahem!” Deadpool brandished the newly unfolded document proudly at the alien. “How about a copyright infringement notice from 20th Century Fox? Read it and weep! 'Inspired by' the Alien franchise, my butt!”
The sound of every Brood in the room screaming at the top of its insectoid lungs and dissolving into a pile of ash echoed in Cable's ears for several minutes. Deadpool looked pleased with himself. Cable stared in disbelief.
“What did you do?” he asked, dreading the answer.
“Never let anyone tell you the right document landing on the right desk at the right moment can't work wonders, Nate my old buddy!” Deadpool declared. “100% counterfeit, but by the time they figure that out you can bet the 'no writing any more Brood until we clear this up DO NOT EVEN THINK IT THIS MEANS YOU' memo will already be out there and too late to call back! It'll buy us at least an issue, maybe more!
“So Nate, as I was saying, before I got interrupted by bugboy there,” Deadpool continued, pulling up his mask and advancing on Cable with the inevitability of a tidal wave, “You tell me why a third-stringer like bleeping Shatterstar is the only nineties-Liefeld-creation getting any hot guy-on-guy action lately.”
And with that, Deadpool threw both arms around Cable's neck and kissed him on the lips.
The next few minutes were... blurry. Tongue was definitely involved. Almost definitely two tongues. Hands wandered into places they had not been invited but found themselves immediately welcome. The tingling returned, now a few crucial inches further down.
Cable pulled back at last to find himself looking into the face of the best friend he'd ever had - a friend who should have been more - who, incredibly, still wanted to be more despite half a dozen things Cable couldn't believe he'd said or done.
“Wade?” Cable tried, two sets of dizzyingly contradictory memories warring in his head. “What was I...”
Deadpool patted him reassuringly - on the arse, as it happened, but it was still generally reassuring. “It's cool, I mostly forgive you. Not many of us can fight editorial mandate - even I had to recruit fanfic writers off an anonymeme to get this far. Officially my new favourite word. A-non-knee-meeeeeme. Mememe. Hee.”
“Fight... what?”
Deadpool waved a hand. “Selective memories. Insufficient fact checking. Underspecified retcons. Creative reinterpretation. Or uncreative if you want my opinion. The whole works.” He looked up into Cable's face and seemed to take pity on him. “Tell you what, don't think about it too hard. Let's call it all repressed trauma after what happened with Providence, handwave the details and get moving before I forget how I did that awesome fourth wall thing that got me here.”
Cable stared at him blankly.
“Would it make you feel better if I called it a... uh, time-travelling remote-controlled bodyslide thing?” Wade suggested.
“You have a way out of here?”
“You have anything to stick around for? C'mon!”
Wade stepped back, pulling Cable along with him by the wrist, and for a couple of blissful seconds Cable actually followed him before one small, important bit of the new reality came crashing down on him.
“Wade, wait,” Cable twisted his arm to grip Wade's and tugged back. “Hope.”
“Oh. Right.” Wade came guiltily to a stop. “Hope. No leaving without the rugrat. Any idea where you left her?” When Cable couldn't immediately give him an answer, he pulled out the comic from before and turned a few pages. “We're pretty far off script now, but according to this she should be right around...”
“Nathan? What happened?” said a voice - a small voice, belonging to a small head that was peering around a doorway. A wiry knot of tension that had been nesting under Cable's chest eased swiftly away.
“...here?” Wade finished. “Hey there, kid! Wait, do I have to pretend like I don't know you for continuity reasons? I can never keep track.”
Hope looked from Cable to Deadpool and back again. “Isn't he...?”
“It's alright, Hope,” Cable told her, “he's here to help.” It almost came out, here to stay. Either would have fitted.
“Was he the one who made all those monsters disappear?” Hope guessed, catching on quickly.
“You betcha! Be good, and maybe I'll teach you how someday!”
“Wade,” Cable warned.
“What, I get to spoil her at least a little bit, don't I? I've got all those birthdays to make up for!”
“We'll discuss it later,” Cable said firmly.
“Later,” Wade agreed, and crouched down so he could talk to Hope face to face. “So kid, you ready to go home?”
“Home?” Hope asked, puzzled.
“You'll know it when you see it, promise,” said Wade, patting her on the head. He turned back to Cable. “How 'bout you? Splattered the aliens, rescued the little girl, kissed the hot guy, did I miss anything?”
You really did know it when you saw it, Cable thought. And you often didn't realise you'd how much you'd been missing it until it was staring you in the face.
“You and I,” he warned, “are still going to have a long conversation about exactly it was you thought you were doing here-”
“As long as it involves the word thank you somewhere. Do you know how screwed Hope's gonna be if she has to learn her manners from me?”
“-after we get back.” Cable finished. “I'm ready. Take us home.”