mouthy_merc | Providence, Friday Evening

	It was surprisingly easy and fun to fly from Virginia all the way to Providence. Especially once Deadpool learned you could play with all the buttons on the console and get it to play talk radio. Okay, so that wasn't fun, but stabbing the radio until it stopped talking about the politics of some podunk town in Nebraska had been pretty fun. Stress relief and all that jazz. This whole trip would have been so much easier if only he had some sort of mercenary agency to transport him there, or maybe a hot blonde with fake breasts, but that was just crazy talk, right? Right. So there he was. Providence. The big... pineapple? It should be called the big pineapple. It had a good ring to it. "Nate's really let this place go," Deadpool said, looking around at all the damage done to the island. "Next thing you know, there will be cars on cinderblocks just laying around and stray cats living in them and no one but Jeff Foxworthy wants that." He frown. "I hate that man so much. Just say they ARE rednecks and be done with it!"
	It felt a lot like a scene from a Clint Eastwood film: Victor Creed, outlining his fiendish plot as he held a struggling Irene Merryweather in his arms. Domino, the lone gunwoman, clinging tenaciously to her weapon as he spoke. It was all very dramatic, if updated for the time period, as there may have been a bit of snarking on the spot. "Gotta tell ya," Creed said, "I'm almost sorry this place got hit like this. Not that I care for this kinda Utopian crap that Nate was gunning for, but you gotta admire the brass ones to shove it in people's faces."
	"...", Domino said, sticking fiendishly close to the average Western plot.
	"What? Got nuthin' to say?"
	"Even if I did, I won't be getting a word in edgewise," the lone gunwoman replied (grunted!), ready to make the sacrifice and save the day.
	Which was all very dramatic and nice of her, but... "VICKIE!" Like Deadpool could see that and not want to shoot Creed. A lot. "Big kisses, sweetie!" What? He was being careful to not hit Irene!
	"IRENE! Roll away!" Domino had no idea where that'd come from, but going from the bullets raining down on Creed, she figured it was better not to be there. She sprang past Creed and pulled Irene quickly to safety as the reporter babbled on. Shock, clearly. Domino took a quick glimpse at the panicking woman and spoke, in as soothing a voice as she could manage, "It's okay, Irene, easy. We have to move."
	Deadpool idly checked the clips in his guns, making sure he had enough bullets so this could last for long enough so they could get away. He was such a boyscout about weaponry, really he was. If only they had a badge for pumping massive amount of bullets into a creepy ass mutant who kinda looked like an overgrown Hello Kitty. "Hey girls, what's up?" He asked cheerfully. Glancing back over his shoulder, he noticed all that hysterical babbling from Irene. Well darn. That never ended well in situations with Mr. Pussycat Doll around. "You got Irene? I'll stay and kick Creed's face in."
	There were forces at war in Domino's head, but she had to give in just this one time -- "You know how much I'd rather trade places," she said, cradling Irene with one arm and propping up her weapon with the other.
	"Yeah. Nate would never forgive me if I did that," Deadpool replied, repressing a sigh over that. He had enough issues with Nate already, thanks for asking.
	"Probably not," Dom agreed. She pulled Irene a little closer, checking to see if - somehow - she could calm the woman down enough to move her. Finally, grudgingly, she looked up at Deadpool again, disgust - at herself, for having to say what she was about to say - and sheer gratitude battling for center stage on her face. "Wade..." she managed, taking a deep breath... "...Thank you," Irene finished, pulling herself up against Domino.
	Looking away from Sabertooth's bleeding and onomatopoeiaing form, Deadpool grinned at them both. "Man, that was so hard that it took two of you to say it!" He turned back, knowing he probably couldn't say it straight to Dom's face. It was the puppy eyepatch, really. Couldn't take her seriously. "Just in case, tell Nate I'm sorry."
	"About--?" Dom asked, turning back as she pushed Irene gently up the stairs. Or what remained of the stairs. God, the island had become a complete disaster area. Heavy buildings laid toppled behind her, wooden beams covering broken cars and obliterated flower arrangements (once arranged by the hippie congregation from southern... wherever)... ruins. These were the ruins of Nate's dream.
	And just over there, next to that burning...thingy, might have been a car, puppies had frolicked with nuns while they taught orphans how to trust again. "Everything," Deadpool replied, ignoring the puppy frolicking place as he hadn't been on the island in ages now. He shook his head, stepping forward to go pester Creed some more. "Okay! So, back to business." He pulled the trigger and just let his brand new automatic rifle go to town on the mutant's prone form. He really should have brought that one Tex gave him before leaving town. Such a fun weapon. "Doo Doo Doo Doo-- Da Da Da Da! I whistle while I count my stash..." He sang, loud enough to be heard over the steady cracking of the gun firing. The noise was kinda soothing. If you had issues hearing, but soothing nonetheless. "Doo Doo Doo Doo-- Da Da Da Da! We'll reunite for lots of cash..." He lifted his other gun, opening fire with that one too now. Creed was kinda looking like a very messy pile of rags, hair and blood now. It was an improvement, if you asked Wade. A big one. "I know what you're thinking, 'I hated that song'--- but you're also thinking, 'He's gonna run out of bullets soon...'" Deadpool shrugged, still firing. "And you know, you're right. I am. Question is, by the time I do... Will there be anything left for your healing factor to fix?" Oh yeah, he had missing this kind of thing. You just couldn't empty a couple of clips into someone you hated back at the school. Well, you could, but that would only end in losing your job and maybe a few angry folks throwing stuff like knives at you. "I mean, I'm hoping, really 'cause that just means I can find new ways to puddinize you." He nodded. "Puddinize means: to turn into pudding. I just made that up." It was a damn good word. He'd have to start using it in everyday situations now. The guns started to click as the clips were emptied and Deadpool just grinned and tossed them to the side. "Hey, look at that! No mo' buwwets."
	There was a lot of really emotional subplot stuff happening while Deadpool was getting the crap kicked out of him, but it mostly involved hugs and puppies and really, Providence had been full of that before and probably would be again once Fabes got over his latest major plot twist. Now, the giver of said hugs and puppies stood bravely far above the fight, having an Internal Struggle. After all, he had to destroy the island in the end -- too much information would be leaked to the world, and he didn't feel that the world, considering its recent track record, was quite ready for that kind of thing. He had a few options. He could restrain Creed; the mutant would probably survive the detonation. He could also let Wade work this one out - there was a good chance they'd both survive the resulting explosion. A good chance. Oh, the hell with it. "Hello, Wade," he said, reasonably, punching the air, "And goodbye, Creed." And lo, the Sabretooth did fly sky high with expletives on his tongue.
	Wade pouted, sheathing his swords. They hadn't even got to the puddinizing yet! "Well, that was anticlimactic."
	"We don't have time to play," Nate said, hopping down from his perch.
	"Hmph." That didn't mean there wasn't time for puddin'. There was always time for puddin'. "Where'd you toss him?"
	"Uhm..." It was a losing battle to fight the grin that was threatening to make its way onto Nate's face, so he let it fade in naturally as he lifted a hand above his eyes to shield them from the sun. He contemplated the area for a long moment before saying, decisively, "That way." Creed hit the water. A very long swim away.
	Deadpool squinted out at the water. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. "Okay, now what?"
	"First things first," Nate said. It had been a day of surprises - mostly very negative ones - but he hoped he'd read this one right. The grin on his face slimmed down to something more managable. He offered Deadpool his hand.
	Deadpool stared at it for about five seconds before taking his hand and grinning like a moron. "Aaah, you had me at 'Hello' and you know it." And gosh, did that just sound romantic? Maybe there were still a few flowers from the hippies laying around... He shook his head. No time for that now. "Okay, what now?"
	If this were a visual medium, there would be a very large spread of the ruined island here. Instead, Nate took a moment to mourn the puppies before soldiering bravely on. "We bury the dead," he said, "And we prevent anyone from obtaining the secrets of the future. We're going to kill both birds with one stone." He was feeling that familiar sense of foreboding again, like a million horrible cameos come to haunt him.
	Oh! So that's what that feeling was. Deadpool was just assuming it was bad gas. Huh. "You think people are gonna come after your goodies?"
	Oh, no, that would just be too easy, wouldn't it? "I think they're already here," he said. He also decided that this was an excellent place to review some of his existential angst before moving on. "You know," he said, philosophically, "It always seemed like the fighting would never end."
	Deadpool just zoned during this wonderful bit of exposition as to the meaning of sacrifice for the greater good, not wearing shirts while fighting and using too many pouches even for his standards and he did love his pouches so, and not knowing some chick's name. It was all very moving and deserving of a two page spread, but really now, who had the attention span to listen to it? "And I think that all just means you need therapy almost as bad as me. Maybe something involving those nifty foam bats to hit stuff with. You could go with your family!" Though, as much fun as that image would be, there was serious business at hand. Protecting the secrets of the future and burying puppies. "You say someone's already on the island lookin' to scavenge your data archives--" Deadpool started, pausing to figure out all that exposition. "--And you won't let that happen even if it means killin' yourself." (Was that so hard to say without the ten minutes wasted?) "I say we take 'em out before it gets to that," Deadpool said, a happy grin on his face as now was the fighty time.
	And poor Nate completely missed out on his points for the word 'mechagenics'. Had he a mind to consider the branching of universes and all of that other nifty monologuing stuff, he would no doubt be completely crushed. Or maybe not. He pushed his telekinetics as far as he could, but found himself dangling in mid-air, shaking like an electrocuted kitten fighting yarn in a bright room. "Unfortunately," he said, "I can't go on the hunt with you. I have to encrypt as much information from the data archives as I can." That much wasn't lying. He just didn't touch on any of the important bits of that particular equation.
	"Before you have to blow it all up?" Because his bullshit senses were tingling, but he couldn't for the life of him figure out why. "Hey, lookin' a bit shaky there, Nate." It was totally just an observation. Nothing strange about that. Or being a little concerned. Friends were concerned sometimes.
	Maybe if Nate just obfuscated the senses with a little more exposition... "My mutant powers returned when I accepted an alien parasite into my body," he said, truncating the details ~~so you wouldn't have to read X-Men~~ as to fill Deadpool in on the situation, "When it died, my restored telepathy was shut down. It seems my telekinesis is slowly fading now, too..." He let go, falling to the ground gently. It just wasn't worth the effort. The opportunity to exposition had been a nice surprise, though.
	It was one of the things Deadpool missed about this place. Bountiful exposition at every opportunity. "So I watch your back while you do what you have to do," he replied, as that was the most obvious solution to this problem. If there wasn't any suicide planned, that is.
	"Won't work," because a nice sacrifice for the sake of good just didn't seem right if you dragged your (former-current-former-current?) best friend into the whole thing. He needed Wade to be... elsewhere. And, for all intents and purposes, not dead. Lucky for him, he still had an ace up his sleeve. "The people who've infiltrated the island don't know about my backup bypass," he said. Years of expositional practice at work.
	"Your backup bypass?" That almost sounded implausible. But Nate wouldn't try to deceive him like that, right?
	No, because Nate had never ever deceived him or anyone else for their own good before. It was not as if there was precedent, I mean, honestly, what did you take him for? A compassionate Napoleon Jesus from a fashionably obliterated future willing to do just about anything to make things better? Come on! "I don't know if it's been damaged," he bullshitted bravely on, "I need you to retrieve it-- keep it safe." Keep yourself safe. "It's the one ace we have up our sleeve." It was almost as if he knew about the horrible cameo holding an oddly literal card just a few feet above his head.
	Nate was so damn lucky that Wade couldn't read any of the narration right now or he'd have one angry merc on his hands. As it was, Deadpool was blissfully ignorant of any surprise guest stars and potential altering of the title due to a case of the Summers lineage. "Okay, where's this backup?"
	"My apartment. Trophy case three. Inside the souvenir maquette of Anton Krutch." He thought it was poetic.
	Deadpool agreed. "Sly dog."
	There was a very large gun being cocked - it really couldn't be anyone but Nate. He regarded it with full focus, mostly to shield himself from the odd sense of resigned melancholy that always struck him in these moments. It was a pity, really, that this had to happen now-- but inevitable, considering his choices. All that was left for him was to... He looked up at Deadpool. "Wade..." he said.
	Wade turned, not about to hear any of it. "Do not say thank you. Do not say you're proud of me. Do not say goodbye." Because if Nate said any of them, it might make the goodbye real.
	"...Your zipper's down," Nate finished, stone-faced.
	Wait, what? Wade looked down at his zipperless pants.
	What blossomed on Nate's face was, perhaps, the biggest shit-eating grin he'd ever managed to support. It was a miracle his entire face didn't collapse. "Made you look," he said.
	Which was quite possibly the best distraction for Wade to keep him from noticing the whole not rightness with Nate's plans. "You are so immature," he replied, turning to go find that statue.
	Now if that wasn't irony... He allowed himself the last dregs of that grin before turning around himself and heading into the broken city. Although he had a mission, for a little while, a moment, his mind got stuck on the-- words. Thank you. I'm proud of you. Goodbye. But his body moved inexorably on.
	Getting to Nate's apartment had been easy, it was the fact that he had about half a dozen trophy cases that was the hard part of the mission. Geeze, how many medals and trophies did he need to keep? "...the Colin Firth DVD collection... autographed picture of Howie Long..." He frowned. "Why doesn't he have a giant penny?" Of course, this easy a job meant something would have to go horribly wrong in three... "Ah! Here's the little so-and-so. Remember when you tried to eliminate racial prejudice by turning everyone blue? Good times," Deadpool said, snagging the statue from its case. Two... one... There was a glowy tentacle on his arm. Why was there a glowy tentacle on his arm? Was Nate trying to be cute by reminding him of that time with the tentacles in bad places? "Nate, this isn't the time or place for you to..." He was cut short by yet more glowy tentacles flying at him. "HEY!" Okay, so it wasn't actually Nate. "It's Senyaka from Sri Lanka! Former Acolyte with energy-based whips. What the heck are you doing here? You got the bestest whips ever, but you probably know that, huh? Are the Acolytes the ones attacking the island? Color me not surprised. You guys have been the arch-nemesisisis of my fellow X-Men for many a moon." Pause. "Okay, you haven't. Just wanted you to feel good about yourself before I kicked your ass in."
	There's something to be said for a double double-cross: you make your enemy believe you think they're stupid enough to believe you're not creating a diversion while you are creating one, and thus, you end up with several of them on your tail heading straight into your trap as they convince themselves they're smart enough to see through your diversion. Wade would have been fond of that sentence, no doubt. They followed Nate down the hall with gusto, cornering him with wit and cockiness, explosions rocketing through the smouldering skeleton of his island. They didn't understand this, not really. They didn't know how to win - a real soldier always did. Sometimes, you win by losing - yourself, a friend, something you can sacrifice for something that's worth it. He told the professor to seal and lock the doors before he got to work. It seemed like the right way to go, nothing but this mechanized voice -- the one that raised him -- to keep him company. He had a job to do. "POWER LEVELS INSUFFICIENT TO INITIATE BLAST DOOR LOCKDOWN. ONLY SUFFICIENT NON-ESSENTIAL SOURCE AVAILABLE IS TELEPORTATION MATRIX OMEGA. WILL ACCESS CONDUIT VIA SPATIAL--" Not the teleporter. The teleporter was-- necessary. "No. Leave it alone. Just seal the doors, then... if it buys me ten seconds, that has to be enough." The questions haunted him. Who, where, why. There were two men in the other room with the order to dispose of him and rip from Providence's core all the information they wanted-- and although he knew he wouldn't have the time to figure it out, let alone deal with it, he couldn't shake the questions. In the end, they followed. Good. That made this easier. He had no intention of encrypting anything. There wasn't any time. The only thing left was-- --to destroy the data-- --to save what remained of the cause-- --to stop the enemy-- --to keep the dream-- --no, to keep the people who mattered the most alive.
	Ow, ow, ow! Being strangled by glowy tentacles---pardon, whips, was not something Deadpool was particularly fond of, but Nate needed that statue to be safe and out of the hands of people who would use the information to hurt people. He reached just a little further, almost there, almost... Then it finally hit him, now that all that exposition had passed. "Wait... if the statue... was so important... why would Nate ever trust me with it?"
	He bled. The enemy-- idiots-- finally understood. "Professor. Requiem." He smiled. They fled. It was too late -- the explosion ripped through the building like an atomic bomb, leaving nothing in its wake.
	"GOTCHA!" He finally reached the statue, holding onto it tightly before a robotic voice could be heard. It was all very 1984. "TELEPORTATION MATRIX OMEGA ACTIVATED: BODYSLIDE - BY ONE." Wade's eyes went wide as he realized, finally, what Nate was doing. "Nate-- you son of a--" but was cut off by the teleportation before he could finish that un-PG phrase.
	He reappeared in his old apartment, sitting down on the couch. "NATE!" "BODYSLIDE COMPLETED: OMEGA MATRIX POWER SUPPLY - DEPLETED. ALL FUNCTIONS TERMINA-" Deadpool snapped the statue in half, cutting off the voice before it could finish. He stared at the little circuitry in in the broken thing for a moment before setting it aside. "I wasn't worth it..." He clicked on the TV. Good to know the power was still working despite not paying any of those pesky little bills. "-massive spatial distortion registered in the vicinity of Cable's south Pacific island-" A reporter, some perky little thing, went on, trying to look professional about the biggest story in her career. Wade slumped down against the couch, muting the television. "...and I won't let you down."