Title: Fanfic Is Just Wobbly Canon
Paring: Wade Wilson X Reader
Warnings: death, angst, fluff, sad, fourth-wall breaks
Spoilers: yessh. Deadpool 2.
Requested By: LordImpossible
Author's Note: Not that it needs to be said once more, but I'll say it again: this book finishes in 2 parts, and I am not taking requests any more as requests are closed.
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Being a part of the X-Men wasn't half bad, most of the time. You got regular dental checks and healthcare cover thanks to the Professor, an account on the team's Netflix you didn't have to pay for, and training to allow you to regulate your mutation to be allowed around other people. While Ellie Phimester could literally explode, and Colossus was metal most of the time, you were able to shift your density. Which had been a rude awakening at fourteen when you fell from your bed at the top of the orphanage through all the floors and landed in a heap in the basement.
But that was years ago, and since, you've been learning not to fall so much as 'fly', or, really, just be half-useful in hand-to-hand combat with the people the X-Men encountered. In 2010, you met Wade Wilson back when he was just a mercenary for cash – by accident! You were on your way to your apartment in the shady part of town and he'd seen you in the shadows as a threat. Leading to his knife in your chest...well, his knife going through your chest. To make up for it, he'd taken you out for an apologetic round of drinks and given you a sloppily drunk kiss. But it was nice. It was Wade.
You're sure he was too drunk to remember that, because it hadn't been mentioned since. But that was perchance because he'd found a girlfriend. Because when you met again a couple of years later – when you were called in from a mission in the Basque country of France – he looked like a scaly piece of radioactive cheese, but, even without the eyebrows and a skincare routine, you knew it was Wade. For one, that sailor mouth.
Now, you're not so sure.
"She's ducking dead," he says, over and over, except ducking is what everyone intends to write when Autocorrect steps in. "And Russel's – duck!" His eyes are wild. He looks like a raggedy, wild, ravaging animal. Or a child. He's acting like it too. His legs are still small, and standing in the corner, you watch as he works out his problems mentally until he growls in frustration.
Weasel looks to you, and you look to Neena, and in turn, look to Wade.
"X-Force didn't work out," you say, and Wade gives you a sharp look. You clear your throat, and start again, "X-Force isn't done yet, but it hasn't done what its goal was. Get Russel and stop him. Especially since he's with Juggernaut."
Neena nods, agreeing. "We need to stop them, I mean, that guy is ugly."
Weasel raises a hand. "How are we going to do it? I mean, me – I'm just me, and Wade has baby legs, Neena – you're just a fluke of nature –,"
She grins at that, "Thank you."
"– and __________, you're just really good at falling through things." He concludes.
"We can't just do nothing." You say, desperate. "We know that Russel turns into a really, really bad guy if we let him go down this path – we have to try! It's better to try at failing than to fail at trying."
"Isn't that from a motivational cat poster?" Neena wonders.
You throw your hands up, exasperated, and leave the room to find Wade's kitchen. When you were but a young boy, a blind boy a little older than you roomed with you at the orphanage. He might have been blind, and at night, covered his head with pillows because everything was too loud, but you learned something from him, even when you discovered your mutation.
Tea makes everything better. Of course, two teenaged boys didn't learn this by themselves – you'd sneak down to the kitchens after sunset for a mug of warm milk that Sister Constantine would permit, but, when your friend came with you this time, she declared that it wouldn't be tea this time for the both of you.
"How old are you boys, again?" she asked in her matronly tone.
"Fifteen," you replied.
"I'm sixteen." Said his friend.
"Well, you're much too old to have warm milk at night. Yes," she repeated, busing herself with boiling a pot of water upon the cast iron stove. "Milk is for children or calves suckling at their mothers' teat in the farmyard. You boys are nearly men, and men drink milk, yes, but with other things."
"Do you mean biscuits?" you questioned.
You had no clue as to what men drank. You had been found as a baby upon the orphanage doorstep, swaddled in a raggedy scarf in a box that had allegedly smelt of cat pee and cigarettes. The nuns raised you, and so, apart from the occasional school teacher who was male, you had few as role models.
"No," Sister Constantine replied. "Tea."
Returning to the living room with several cups looped over your fingers, it isn't until you look up and realise that almost everyone there has a gun cocked to where you were just standing. Because standing there is the man who had just been trying to kill Russel. It's then your mutation kicks in with the adrenaline that's racing through your mind, and the cups drop, hitting the floor. Kersch-plash.
"Sorry," you apologise, "I just – he's – what?"
"Cable. The mother-trucker who was – hey, who's censoring my words?" Wade frowns, looking at you. No, not you, the you who's reading. "Did the writer put you up to this?" he asks, growling. "I am the Merc with a Mouth, not one of those lame-o's from The Good Place." He bring his hand down upon his baby leg in frustration, and winces. "Fork! Bench." He turns his gaze from you back to you, standing in the doorway with several broken mugs of tea at your feet, and continues, "He's the guy who wanted to let Russel get blown up like a piñata on the Day of the Dead."
"Oh," you say, "hi."
The other man says nothing. But it's what happens next that says more words.
You see it happening, perhaps, before he did.
There was the shot of the gun from that asshole, and the bang! of the shot itself, and well, you did what you did. Your feet move themselves, your brain makes you move faster than before. Sure, earlier today you couldn't function enough to hold your own with your density vs. the tea cups, but now, your body is in fight mode. And before you can register what you're doing, you've moved.
You feel the bullet, and feel somewhat hollow, and but its then you shift. Your skin grows dense, like concrete trying to drip dry out of a waterless tap.
Time seems to go back to normal after that.
And you collapse to the ground, heavy. From the hole in your chest, you know you're bleeding onto the X-Force unitard. From what's hurting the most, you know the bullet has hit your heart, right where you didn't need a bullet to go through. But you took it.
"Bruv," Russel says, shocked.
"__________!" Wade's at your side. "No – what!"
You look to him, unable to articulate anything. From shifting your mutation as you took the bullet, you can only assume it's taking up all your energy, all your will, and you can feel weaker. "H-hi." You whisper.
"__________, you can't die," Ellie blinks, looking between you and Colossus. At the mansion, you never thought yourself as close, but here she is, breaking. "Call someone!"
But you're focusing on Wade, with every second you have left.
"__________, no," he says, pulling the mask up, so you can see his lips. "You can't die too."
You muster all your strength, and reaching toward Wade with your hand, you place your fingers on his chin, and your hand falls to land on his chest. "I...I l –," You splutter, your heart rate fading quick, your lungs unable to fill. "you."
It all goes dark.
Time is strange when you don't care about it. He care deeply for it, especially since it's what he works on. Lives off. Needs. But he says he doesn't care, and that's what other people know of him. They don't know much of him. Like how he had a son, once. A perfect child, unaffected like him. It drove him mad, seeing the boy showing no mutant genes. It was when he and his wife, quite young, and quite sure of it at that time, decided to return this child to where he came from. Originally. So that it could have the best life for someone like that.
So, he had his wife write a note, and they wrapped the child in a scarf, and marked him in a way so if he wanted to, he could find the boy. And together, he and his child, went to the late 20th century, to a small orphanage in New York city. He chose a warm night, to leave him, in a box that smelt faintly of cigarette smoke.
After that, time went on for him. Forwards, backwards, his device worked well. Until that night, and then, he, in revenge for what happened to his family, armed himself with it, and saw it had only two more rides left. One to the 21st century. To take out Russell Collins. And one to return home.
But plans change.
Cable watches the young man fall, having taken the bullet. But it isn't until he takes his hand, and places it against Wade's chest that he notices a small mark on the inside of his wrist. Three dots, faded, yes, but, there, as if tattooed.
He knows those dots. While the X-Force are busy churning out tears, he turns his device, and in time – a fluid thing, really – goes backwards, for once, in a small way. Ten minutes, back when they were un-squashing out of the taxi together.
He does what he does, and shrugs when asked why he touched the younger man's chest. He feigns indifference, and, well. The rest is history. Future.
Now.
You see it happening, perhaps, before he did.
There was the shot of the gun from that asshole, and the bang! of the shot itself, and well, you did what you did. Your feet move themselves, your brain makes you move faster than before. Sure, earlier today you couldn't function enough to hold your own with your density vs. the tea cups, but now, your body is in fight mode. And before you can register what you're doing, you've moved.
You feel the bullet, but, not as you expect it. Your body is tensed, your mutation had kicked in, but there was no feeling. It's then you realise.
The bullet is nestled into the ground near your feet, dented by something. You're intact. Russel's intact. You frown, and look to Wade, and your eyes land on Cable. He nods, as cryptic as ever, and it is then when he goes to inspect his gun.
"I nearly died," you whisper, looking once more to your friends, your eyes settling on Wade. Your adrenaline is still coursing your body, and it's in a split second when you stride toward him, looking at him through the mask. "Wade, there's something I gotta tell you."
Russel gives you two a look, and moves toward Colossus, away from you too.
"You left the stove on at my place?" he asks.
"No, no, not that," you shake your head. "Do you remember back in 2010 when we first met? In the alleyway? You stabbed me, but I –,"
He nods.
But you persist. "Do you remember all of it? Because sometimes it's like you try to erase that bit, because you've never brought it up. You were with V –,"
Wade interrupts you, ripping the mask from his face that looks like an undercooked and under-sauced pepperoni pizza, and at once, he cradles your face with his gloved hands, and your heart stops. Not in the literal way. Because finally, it's happening sober. It's happening out of your guilty pleasure daydreams and wishes.
"I wasn't sure if you remembered," he says to you, as you break for air.
"Gross," says Russel.
"Every sock has a pair," says Yukio, no doubt holding Ellie's hand.
"Of course I remembered," you say, and kiss Wade forkin' Wilson, the guy you've been in love with since that night in 2010.