Chapter Text
They complete the circuit. They complete the circuit and energy flows through them like lightning and a thousand times as destructive. Their bodies begin to shred apart at the atomic level, breaking down, slipping from cohesion into star stuff, breaking and breaking and--
--and then it shifts, something changes, they begin to flow with the matter and antimatter, they flow into each other, flow between being and not, flow between one and zero, Schrödinger's cat on crack cocaine, a single being dead-or-alive with nothing to observe it but itself--
--and for a second or an age they float in darkness, the space between universes outside it all where time isn't real, where all that exists is what remains of them, their hands clasped, their beings entangled.
And then finally it's over, maybe, and they're two halves of each other, fallen into the water below as the catwalk breaks under them and they're clinging to one another, gasping as their bodies frantically rebuild, get used to being real again.
Someone's fingers push someone's mask up for better access to oxygen, wheezing breaths in half-ruined lungs, desperate. Someone's fingers are curling, grasping frantically to someone's shoulders, afraid to let go.
"You okay?" Logan asks, but he hears it in Wade's voice, and Wade nods, shivering in the cold water and Logan rests his forehead against Wade's and together they breathe, breathe, breathe.
-
"He has risen, babygirl!"
"FUCK!"
-
"I'll probably see you around?"
"Probably not," Logan says, something in his spine still shaking even now, and Wade looks at him with those huge dark eyes that look--hurt, maybe, heartbroken, and Logan knows he has to get up and leave before he can't.
Each step is agony increasing, the thing in his spine trembling ever-harder and then Wade calls his name and he stops, turns, sees those eyes again; pleading, desperate.
A rush of emotion slams into his hindbrain, it feels half foreign and half his own; don't do this can't do this without you please stay please stay stay stay stay let me stay stay stay
"Come home with me," Wade blurts out, and Logan finds that he's taken steps toward Wade without realizing it, closing the yawning gap between them, and the thing in his spine relaxes just a little.
"Okay," he says.
-
The hot shower feels so, so good that night.
Sweat and blood and dirt sloughs off him like a second skin. He uses Wade's soap, scrubs himself off with a washcloth. Wade's soap smells sweet, like fruity candy, and it's nearly overwhelming to Logan's senses; the scent eases up when he rinses the foam off his body, and then when he dries off and gets into the oversized pajama pants and t-shirt Wade laid out for him, he just smells like Wade, which. Well. Makes him feel something that seems like a phantom of an emotion approaching comfort, something that he decides to examine later, if at all.
He pokes his head out of the bathroom and sees Wade busily taking apart the couch.
"What the hell are you doing?"
"Listen, I don't actually share a bed with Blind Al, I sleep on the couch. It's actually a pull-out--haha, pull-out--so, um. There's room for both of us." Wade shrugs. "Or you can see if Blind Al is willing to share, but honestly, I wouldn't bet on that. She's already gone to bed and she doesn't take nicely to--"
"You're asking me to sleep with you?"
Wade's brow shoots up, mouth curving into a little smile, and Logan swears he can feel the amusement there, palpable, something he can touch. "Well, peanut," Wade says slowly, "depends if you're okay with not pulling out on the pull-out." His little smile becomes a full grin. "No, but, um. Shit, I've made this weird."
"It was already weird."
"Okay, yeah. I'm serious, though. You can sleep with me. Next to me. Whatever. Or--or you can take the couch and I can sleep on the floor, I don't care. Not the first time, won't be the last." Wade is babbling, like he always does, but this feels different from his normal shit, it feels like he's anxious; Logan feels attuned to it, attuned to the way Wade shifts back and forth on the balls of his feet like his body is preparing to flee. "Shit, maybe I'll sleep in the bathtub, that'd be fun--"
"Hey, hey, shhh." He interrupts him because he hates this, hates Wade's anxiety in this moment. It seems wrong to be anxious with each other after what they did today. "We can share, bub. I'm not gonna make you sleep on the floor. Or in the fuckin' tub, what's wrong with you?"
"Oh, lots of things," Wade chirps. "Now, I'm not exactly used to sleeping with my clothes on, because my roommate is blind and everything, so this is gonna be an adjustment for me, but so help me god I'll make this sacrifice for you, Wolvie." Logan grunts, watches Wade turn the couch into a bed, fluffing out throw pillows and effectively converting the pull-out into a nest. "Okay, that's that, um, make yourself comfortable, I'm gonna..."
Wade ducks into the bathroom and closes the door. Logan hears the shower come on almost immediately.
He carefully settles onto the bed, a little unsure if it will hold his entire adamantium-fortified weight, but it serves its purpose admirably as he gets under the covers.
Fucking bizarre to be bunked down in an old lady's shithole apartment that she shares with Wade Wilson of all people. He curls up protectively, rubs at his wrists where they're still sore from what happened earlier.
Not sore from Wade's grip. No, Wade's touch had felt like a relief, if anything. Like if he were to have let go, he would have disintegrated; like Wade's touch was the only thing making Logan's atomic structure remember how to be a person.
He swallows. Feels unsteady, even in this bed. Feels like the ground might shake under him at any second. Feels like he might rend apart, like his matter might unstick and dissipate like breath on a cold day. He rubs his wrists harder, shivers even under the thick quilt, and--
The bathroom door opens and Wade exits, dressed in similar sweatpants and t-shirt. "Oh, honey badger, that was the best shower I've ever had and I didn't even jerk off," he moans, flopping onto the bed, and Logan--he stills, that unsteady thing that shook inside him calming, slowing.
"Was pretty nice to get clean after... everything," Logan agrees.
Wade reaches out and pats Logan's shoulder and the unsteady thing at the base of his brain changes; it no longer feels off-kilter, it begins to resonate, brings a sweet rolling calm through his body that he hadn't known he'd needed with such desperation.
Maybe Wade feels it too, because he keeps his hand there, and Logan doesn't shrug it away.
"I'll get out of your shit in a few days," Logan says. "Figure myself out. Don't wanna impose."
"Or," Wade says, drawing out the word, "you can just stay. As long as you want." He looks at Logan, a little hopeful. "Y'know. Help Blind Al and I with the rent. Take Mary Puppins for walks."
don't go don't go please let me stay have to stay with you can't be apart not anymore
"We'll see," Logan says.
-
They fall asleep not touching, physically, but back to back, under one quilt, close enough to feel each other's warmth.
Logan wakes up in the night to find Wade leaned up against his chest, making small noises in his sleep; Logan looks down at him, appraises the situation, sees his brow knitted anxiously and his eyes darting back and forth fast behind closed lids. His heart pounds in Logan's ears.
More than that, he feels Wade's fear, tastes it in the air.
He thinks he knows what Wade is dreaming of. Flashes of blue and yellow and sparks and electricity and a sickening red glow play across his mind's eye, unpleasant, jarring.
Call it intuition.
"Hey, bub," he whispers, lightly running a hand up Wade's arm and back down, reassuring. It's okay. I'm here. We're both here.
Wade blinks a few times but doesn't wake, brow smoothing, heartbeat slowing. He leans harder into Logan, lets out a shuddering sigh, and relaxes again.
Logan doesn't hold him. He just strategically places an arm over him for more comfortable positioning. And because weight on a person can help them feel more secure.
He gets back to sleep easily.
-
It's dangerously simple to fall into the rhythm of living with Wade and Althea and even the goddamn dog.
It feels natural to do shit like tidy up around the apartment, to help cook meals, to grocery shop. To watch reality TV and listen to Wade and Althea bitterly complain about the contestants on The Bachelorette.
And whenever that thing in his skull rattles just a little too hard, threatens to shake him apart, all he has to do is reach out and touch Wade's shoulder, or nudge their arms together, or lean on him a little, and whatever goes haywire in him calms down again, becomes a soft purring thing, spreading pleased warmth from his brainstem down his spinal column.
-
"Hey, uh," Wade says one afternoon when they're at Trader Joe's and Wade reached for the right roast of coffee without even asking, "is it just me or has there been some weird stuff going on?"
Logan sweeps a bag of honey-mustard pretzel chunks into their cart. "How so?"
"Like--that! Just now! You knew I wanted those Pretzel Bitz and I didn't even tell you."
Logan looks down at the Bitz in question, then back up to Wade. "I don't know what the hell you're talking about," he lies.
-
They've got to make money somehow, and Deadpool still has more mercenary jobs than he can shake a katana at.
They work together and it's seamless, fighting as one, almost as if they're able to predict each other's moves and coordinate attacks without even speaking.
Almost.
-
Another day, Wade comes through the door and is immediately talking.
"No, seriously, you don't feel that?"
"Feel what?"
"This! We've been apart all day and I feel like shit! Don't you feel like shit? Look--"
Wade crosses the room and Logan tries not to tremble with anticipation and then Wade touches him, just reaches out and touches his wrist so very lightly, and Logan is able to breathe a full lungful again, it feels like recentering, attunement, it feels like home.
"Don't you feel that?" Wade asks quietly, fingers clasping gently around Logan's wrist.
"I feel you tryin' to hold my fuckin' hand," Logan grumbles.
"If I was trying to hold your hand, I'd do this," Wade says and, smooth as anything, slips his fingers down to slide in between Logan's.
It. Well. It feels nice, okay? It feels frighteningly nice, Wade's textured skin gently stroking the soft webbing at the base between Logan's fingers. It's a type of intimacy Logan hasn't felt in a long time.
Or what feels like a long time. He thinks maybe they did this in the water under that ruined catwalk, under the blown matter/antimatter conduits; he thinks maybe they held hands, breathed each others' air, clung to each other and fought to bring one another safely back to existence, full existence, together as one-two, one-two, one-two units of Wade-And-Logan.
Logan closes his hand automatically, interlocking his fingers with Wade's on instinct, and Wade looks surprised for a split second, and Logan panics, relaxes his spring-tensor muscle and shoots his claws straight through Wade's fingers.
"Gah! Fucking ouch, peanut," Wade grumbles, but doesn't actually let go; to be fair, he can't with the claws spearing him. "You're getting blood on Al's carpet."
"Fucking ask before you try to play holdyhands with me next time, bub," Logan growls, activating his spring-tensor again to withdraw his claws back into his arm, and trying to ignore the strange sense of loss when Wade lets go.
"Did you just say 'holdyhands?'" Wade grins, crouches to pick up a severed pinky from the floor and jam it back onto his hand. "Ah, shit, too slow. It's not gonna stick."
"Would it just stick back on if you were fast enough?"
Wade shrugs. "Sometimes. I mean, if all of me were blown up but the pinky, I'd grow back from that."
"How come you don't just grow two Deadpools?"
"Deadpool mitosis! Have to say, peanut, I've wondered the same thing myself! But wouldn't you know, I've never been able to figure out how to pull it off. I seem to grow back from the general head area whenever possible."
"Has it ever been, uh," Logan says, watching Wade cheerily feed his own dismembered digit to the garbage disposal, "not possible?"
"For sure!" Wade says, dusting off his hands, freshly-growing new finger and all.
"What if you were bisected down the middle, up and down? Two identical halves."
"Ooh, you wanna know which one grows back?" Wade waggles his browless ridges. "I dunno. You wanna find out?"
"Nah," Logan says instantly, "I'm good."
-
The closer they end up at night, the less painful it is to be apart during the day. They don't talk about The Arrangement, how usually they wake up with Logan's chest flat against Wade's back, skin contact from pectoral to thigh, his arms curled around Wade's waist as Wade breathes slow and deep, coaxes Logan's own respiration to match, heartbeats syncing up in time.
-
"I was thinkin' about seeing if the X-Men here have any jobs they'd like an assist on," Logan says one morning over breakfast on a park bench, shitty Starbucks sandwiches that they picked up on their morning walk with Mary Puppins. Wade sneaks the dog a bit of egg from his sandwich, which she joyously accepts before darting off to chase a squirrel. "You're turning her into a fuckin' pest," Logan sighs, "you know that, right?"
Wade ignores the last comment. "You wanna join back up with the X-Men?"
"What I want is a paycheck," Logan grumbles, eyes following the dog as she frolics across the park in her tiny suit and tinier shoes.
"We get paychecks from hit jobs. Good paychecks," Wade says.
"Not steady ones. The X-Men pension ain't nothin' to sneeze at." He shakes his head. "We could get a better place. Get the dog a back yard. Get Althea a better TV sound system."
Wade smiles, bright. "You'd still want to live with me and Al?"
"Don't think I could make rent alone even with the X-Men pension. Not in New York." And I can't imagine living without you for a single day, let alone longer; I think I'd fall apart, I think I'd slip back into that space between universes without you to hold me here. "And as for Althea..." He shrugs. "Don't think it's a good idea to leave a lady with a coke habit like hers all alone."
"Alright, fair." Wade hums. "So... the X-Men, huh?"
Wade rolls the idea around in his head. Logan knows he must be thinking about it seriously, because he stays silent as he does it. They watch together as Mary Puppins chases the squirrel up a tree and yarps insistently up at it for a few seconds before losing interest and going after a different one.
"You sure you're gonna be okay with that?" Wade asks lightly, as if inquiring about what kind of toppings Logan likes on pizza. "With the whole seeing-the-faces-of-your-dead-friends thing?"
"Yeah," Logan says. "I'm sure."
Wade just looks at him.
"Goddamn it. No," Logan amends, because Wade can see through him, and when did that happen? It feels pointless to lie now. Not after everything. "I'm not fuckin' sure. How could I be fuckin' sure?"
Wade nods. Looks back out across the dog park where their little lady is busily flirting with a German Shepherd, trying to entice him to chase her. "You've been real fun to have as a ride-along buddy for hits," Wade says, nudging Logan's elbow with his own. "You think the X-Men might take me as an unofficial ride-along?"
i'll come with you if you want god yes please come with me i could do it alone but I don't want to of course i will don't sweat it kitten whiskers
"I thought you said the X-Men wouldn't take you. Didn't like your tactics."
"They really don't! You know, they tried to recruit me for ages before they changed their minds."
"Can't imagine why they did that."
"I know, right? Funny how it's totally cool for Colossus to throw people off rooftops and for Negasonic to blast people to smithereens, but as soon as I blow one guy's dick clean off with a single pistol shot--"
Logan raises his eyebrows. "Clean off?"
"Clean off, peanut! Balls, too!"
"Hm." He gives a small, approving grunt.
"Thank you! Anyway, as soon as I do that, it's all--" Wade raises his hands in a comedic show of horror, complains singsong, "--oh no, Deadpool! You're too violent, Deadpool! Rein it in, Deadpool!"
Logan tries hard not to smile, but Wade is... endearing. "You're not makin' a great case for yourself, here, bub."
"But listen!" Wade twists to face Logan a little more head-on. "Even the X-Men can see we do good work together, peanut. Real good work! Even if they won't take me, maybe they'll take a package deal." He grins, lopsided. "And I'll really try to rein it in. And by 'it,' I mean my wanton propensity for truly insane amounts of blood and gore. What do you say?"
Logan loses his little battle, a smile breaking out over his face. He looks out over the park, watches Mary Puppins tree another squirrel. "You know I'd like to have you along," Logan says, because it's the truth. Wade does know.
Hard to hide anything nowadays.
Wade pumps his fist. "Fuck yeah! This is gonna be great!"
-
Professor X invites them to dinner the day Logan contacts him and says he's interested in doing some work.
It's not great. Not at first.
It's hard to meet Hank's eyes. Scott's. Ororo's. Xavier's. They shake his hand. They greet him like an old friend, not like people he failed, people he let die.
He handles it okay until Nightcrawler walks in and lights up at the sight of him. "How have you been, Logan?" Kurt asks, this gentle, guarded concern in his voice, and when Logan looks at him all he can see is blue skin blown open, all he hears is silence, all he can smell is blood and death, and--
"Oh shit!" Wade blurts out, "sorry, everyone, I gotta call a time out. Peanut, Al is calling, we gotta take this! I think Mary Puppins got into her stash of disco dust and she's freaking out!"
Wade grabs Logan's wrist and hauls him away through some random door; he follows blindly and they end up in what looks like a small library. Alone. Just the two of them.
Logan leans heavily against a bookshelf, eyes clamped shut. Wade's hand slides from his wrist up to his shoulder, and Logan is grateful for the contact, grounding.
"Your phone wasn't ringing," Logan says when he finally opens his eyes.
"Sure wasn't."
Logan swallows. Wade doesn't ask if he's doing okay. Just squeezes his shoulder.
"You wanna bail?" he asks instead. "We can just walk out, right now. Literally nothing stopping us."
"'S tempting," Logan admits. "I dunno if I'm lookin' at ghosts, or..." He shakes his head as if can shake his thoughts loose. "Or if I'm the fuckin' ghost."
"Probably both," Wade murmurs. "Gotta be a totally shit feeling, huh?"
You'd know, wouldn't you? You can feel it too. That's why you got me out of there.
"Totally shit," Logan agrees. "Are you sure you wanna do this? Join the fuckin' X-Men?"
"I'm not joining them. I'm just here as your annoying-as-shit, syphilitic, slightly leprotic emotional support chihuahua." Wade nudges Logan's shoulder. "This is for you. We can leave, peanut. Or not. Either way, I'm behind you. Staring at your ass."
Logan chuckles, casts his eyes skyward, rolls his shoulders and neck out and tries to relax. "No. Let's do this. I really want that fuckin' paycheck."
-
Wade stays close to him after dinner. Hovers. Runs interference whenever a stranger wearing a friend's face gets a little too familiar.
Of course, it's Deadpool-brand interference, making an ass of himself, saying truly out-of-pocket shit to fully distract and make uncomfortable everyone present. Nevertheless, Logan is grateful.
"So, a couple of us were actually going to check out a lead tomorrow," says one of the new kids Logan doesn't recognize, a girl about Laura's age, "some abandoned observatory that Beast's gotten some weird readings off of. You wanna come along?"
Deadpool's eyes flit over to Logan's.
"Depends. Is the merc invited?" Logan asks.
The new kid, Doreen, looks over to Colossus--who hesitates, makes a miserable noise, then shrugs. "If that's what it takes," he sighs.
"It is!" Wade yelps, sounding more like Mary Puppins than anything else.
"Well, then. Happy to have you aboard, Wolverine! ...And Wade," the metal man says, visibly regretting his decisions even as he makes them. "On a purely unofficial trial basis."
-
Turns out there's some idiot in the old observatory trying to make opossums that explode.
"Well, ain't this just the dumbest fuckin' idea," Logan groans, eyeing the little makeshift laboratory and cringing at the sight of multiple vivisected animals. He approaches a cage with a living possum, the miserable creature hissing and spitting and backing against the rear of the cage.
"Aw, shit, this is just so uncool, all of this," Wade says, casting about the empty lab. "Where the fuck is the guy?"
"Oh my God," Doreen whispers, looking around, and Logan suddenly regrets that she in particular was brought along for this. Her fluffy tail twitches. "This is..."
There's wires sticking out of the opossum in the cage. Logan flicks the cage open, reaches inside, and severs the possum's spinal cord with a claw before the animal can even register what's happening. "Sorry, bub," he whispers as the animal goes permanently still.
"Oh, fuck, peanut! What'd you do that for?"
"Trust me," Logan grunts, retracting his claws, "that was a kindness."
"Thank you," Doreen murmurs. Logan nods.
"This guy's journal is insane," Negasonic groans, flicking through it. "He wants to make self-replicating pipe bombs and set them free in the city. That's why they're possums. He thinks they'll be able to take over the population. What the fuck."
"This is so fucking stupid," Wade grumbles. "Should have been literally any other animal than a possum."
"Oh, is that what makes this stupid, bub?"
"Okay, it's not the only thing, but--"
There's a horrified gasp as the door flies open and the apparent owner of the lab appears. "Intruders!" he shrieks, reaching for a weapon at his hip, and. Well. It's one guy whose terroristic plot relied almost solely on exploding possums. It's not exactly hard for four mutants to get him subdued.
-
"You smell like a slaughterhouse fucked a YMCA locker room raw," Althea snaps the second they enter the apartment, "go get cleaned up right now. Both of you!"
"Oh, come on, is it really worse than usual?" Wade pulls his mask off, tossing it in the direction of the hamper.
"Yes! You fuckin' reek, the two of you! God damn!"
"Sorry, Althea," Logan says, "give us a second."
"Well, who gets first dibs on the shower? Rock paper scissors for it? Unless you wanna conserve water, kitten whiskers," Wade says on a wink. "C'mon, baby, let's save the earth."
Logan can't tell how serious he is, can't figure him out; he flirts all the time, but he flirts with everyone, and Logan can feel a strange sort of sincerity in him but he feels that a lot when Wade talks to him, and--sure, they end up with their limbs tangled together in the night, they wake up unsure whose limbs are whose, but that's--
That doesn't mean anything, right?
And Wade is so strangely pretty, even covered in blood and scars as he is--maybe especially covered in scars as he is--batting his imaginary eyelashes at Logan and making kissy noises, and Logan wonders if he's being teased. Made fun of.
No. This is just how Wade is, how he interacts with the world, how he relates to people. He's not being serious.
He never is.
"You fuckin' wish," Logan grumbles. "You had the first shower last time and used up all the goddamn hot water. I'm taking this one. Get out of the way."
-
He slides into bed with Wade that night and usually Wade has the good grace to wait until they're both asleep to initiate bodily contact but apparently not tonight, because the second he's under the covers, Wade is boldly curling himself against Logan's chest.
"The only thing keeping me from stabbing you through the face right now," Logan grits out, "is Althea is out of earplugs."
"C'mon, kitten whiskers. It's fine to cuddle the homies good night."
"You're so fucking annoying."
"Weird way to pronounce 'delightful,' but okay." Wade nestles under Logan's chin. "Besides, you can stab me if you want, baby boy. I live in a one-bedroom apartment with an old lady, let's just say I know how to be real nice and quiet for you if I have to be."
Logan grits his teeth and tries not to let his mind go the places Wade is suggesting, tries not to imagine Wade touching himself right here on this couch, maybe biting his hand to keep from moaning.
He wrenches his mind back toward more violent thoughts. It's tempting, but the practicality doesn't check out. "If I do that, we'll have to sleep on wet, bloody sheets. No fuckin' thanks." Logan places a hand on Wade's chest and shoves him away.
Wade chuckles and grabs a pillow to cuddle with instead, fixing Logan with his soft dark gaze. "You did real good on the mission today."
"It wasn't a mission. It was barely--"
"It fucking sucked. You had to kill like four possums right in front of Squirrel Girl, of all people. And you handled it like a champ."
Logan snorts. "Gee. Thanks."
"I'm being honest, actually," Wade mumbles into his pillow. "Like, for once, I'm not trying to be patronizing. I get if you don't believe me, but I'm serious. Getting back in the saddle in a whole new universe after everything? Confronting your dead friends? Being peoples' dead friend? That's hard."
The eye contact is steady. Logan feels as vivisected as one of those goddamn possums.
"You're the bravest motherfucker I know, Logan." Wade says it with the same sincerity with which he called Logan the best Wolverine, back before their tangle with the Time Ripper.
Logan realizes it abruptly, all at once, and it feels like creeping up a set of stairs at night and thinking there's one last step where there isn't, that terrifying split second where you step up onto nothing.
He wants to kiss Wade.
He wants to draw Wade into his arms and kiss him stupid, kiss him for hours. Trace slow-morphing scars with his fingertips, make him know he's wanted. He wants to kiss him and touch him and hold him close and somehow it feels less like fantasy and more like memory.
Sparks overhead, water underneath, electrical charge still singing in their veins, fingers dug tight into each others' skin, faces meeting and it's not so much a kiss as a sharing of breath, mouths brushing as they rest their foreheads together, putting their souls back in place and shivering, shivering, shivering.
Wade's eyes are wide, searching Logan's. "No way," he murmurs. "Did we...?"
"No," Logan lies, turning over, slapping the lamp on the side table and casting the room into relative darkness.
-
Not every job is as easy as dismantling a lab full of combusting marsupials.
Scott--this Scott--is smart enough to place Logan and Wade mostly with the new kids, kids that either didn't exist in his world or that he never got to meet. He's not much of a teacher, but Colossus and Scott and the Professor seem to think they can learn from him anyway.
And Wade's there with him, and Wade seems to really be getting something out of all this, out of being useful, even if he does have to rein back his more violent tendencies.
Most of the time.
"Oops," Deadpool says, right before he slices some poor bastard right in half, "that was a freebie, right?"
"Works better if you say 'oops' after you do the thing you're apologizing for," Logan calls across the roof they find themselves on, tossing another attacker down to the ground below. (Technically, Logan doesn't kill him. The fall does.)
"My bad!"
-
"Hey," Wade says, as they circle each other out on the lawn, "wanna demonstrate some melee technique for the kids?"
"Is that your way of asking me to beat the shit out of you?"
"Nah." Logan watches Wade's knees soften, watches him subtly drop into a loose, readied stance. "I'm asking to beat the shit out of you."
Two of the kids, Doreen and Axo, hoot and holler at the big talk. Logan can't help but play into it. "If you're so desperate for an ass-kicking, why don't you just say so?"
"Maybe I want you to make me beg for it, big boy."
"Gross!" Negasonic shouts from her spot on the sidelines with the other students who have gathered to watch what the hell is going on.
Nothing's going on, not really, just some good clean fun. One nice thing about having access to this universe's Xavier Institute is having full run of the rather extensive grounds. Sure, he and Wade can just go out into the woods at night and beat the living hell out of each other for fun, but--there's something a little satisfying about being able to spar in broad daylight, unworried about some poor hiker stumbling upon them and freaking the hell out.
And it's kinda fun to put on a little show for the kids.
Logan's the first to make a move, abruptly unsheathing his claws and lunging to take a swipe from Wade's shoulder to hip; Wade dodges as if he sensed it coming, leaps and twists in the air like a gymnast, withdrawing a katana midair and coming down on Logan's other side.
He can feel pleasure radiating off of Wade, excitement, joy.
They've gotten damned good at predicting each others' movements, but they're still able to catch each other off guard if they're quick enough. Wade has learned to feint with him, to lean fully into one attack and switch at the last second, sleight of hand, close-up magic.
"Oof, that's gotta sting!" he singsongs as a katana slices straight through to Logan's femur, adamantium scraping on adamantium. It does fucking sting, actually, and it stings even more that Wade is getting the upper hand.
Logan's never been quite as good at finesse as he is with sheer force. If you overwhelm your enemies with attacks and just do not give up, you will eventually wear them down. He's not one for showy acrobatics, capoeira, flips; he hits hard and he simply does not stop.
This isn't to say that he can't fight other ways. And fuck knows Wade seems to be taking full advantage of whatever connection was forged between them underneath the Time Ripper to predict Logan's attacks.
Fine. If Wade's gonna play dirty, so will Logan. He mentally maps out his next series of attacks; right, left, pounce, uppercut; he thinks as clearly as he can, and then does the exact inverse of what he's picturing.
It's fairly successful; Wade catches Logan's claws in his chest. "Oh, you dirty bitch!" Wade groans and wrenches himself off the claws in him. Unfortunately that trick doesn't work again; either consciously or not, Wade stops relying so much on the strange thing between them and catches him in the shoulder with another knife.
Wade is laughing, the sound so sweet in Logan's ears; it's not a condescending laugh, he's just full of happiness and pleasure and that feeling has to get let out somehow. They're not in their suits, not wanting to cut them up unnecessarily, so Logan can see Wade's eyes, shining, as he moves in the dappled sunlight where it comes through the thick clouds overhead.
Yet again, Logan wants to kiss him. Wants to pull him in by the front of his bloodied hoodie and kiss his smiling mouth, wants to feel that laugh against his lips, wants to feel Wade gasp and melt against him, he knows he would, he knows how Wade would feel solid and warm in his arms and he wants to feel that soft scarred mouth against his own chapped lips.
Wade's eyes widen, his next attack falters, and Logan takes full advantage. Logan lunges, slamming him to the ground with both sets of claws all the way through his body, pinning him straight to the dirt below.
"Alright, big boy," Wade wheezes, tapping on Logan's arm, "you win. Fuckin' A, peanut."
The kids cheer and whoop as Logan wrenches his claws free from the ground and offers Wade a hand up, which he takes, eyes never leaving Logan's. Things seem to move in slow motion, Logan hardly hears the students, Wade's gaze finally dropping down Logan's face to his mouth and Logan wonders briefly if Wade's gonna kiss him, right here in broad daylight on the grounds of the Xavier Institute in full sight of a half dozen mutant kids.
He doesn't, of course he fucking doesn't, why would he?
Logan hears Doreen cry out. "Oh, shit! Monkey Joe, no!"
It's enough warning that he doesn't reflexively stab the squirrel when it leaps up his leg and climbs him like a tree to perch on his shoulder and chitter in his ear. He chuckles, a little grateful for the distraction from whatever is going on between him and Wade; he reaches up to gently grab the tiny animal off his shoulder. "Fearless little thing, ain't you," he grumbles, turning to Doreen and taking a few steps toward her. She meets him in the middle and takes Monkey Joe from Logan's hand; he chitters and darts up Doreen's arm to her shoulder to sit next to yet another squirrel there. "Yeah, that's right, go bother Tippy Toe."
"You know the squirrels' names?" Wade asks, sounding incredulous and delighted.
"Fuck off," Logan grunts.
-
The thing is that Wade doesn't want him, not really. He jokes, he flirts and cajoles, but Logan is neither stupid nor delusional enough to think Wade actually wants him for real.
But they're really becoming accustomed to one another, falling seamlessly together into a life that seems too good for Logan to deserve; they share a home and work and a dog and family game nights and hell, they share a bed, and... well. It's close to a partnership of sorts.
It's more good than Logan could have ever hoped to get.
And Wade gravitates to him at night, plasters up against him in his sleep, and the thing in Logan's brain that judders and shakes whenever they're apart goes still, calm, soft.
Logan wakes up hard early some mornings, of course he does, wakes up with Wade snoring softly in his arms. He peels himself from the bed and when he runs a hot shower, gets in, lets the water run over his back as he closes his eyes and takes himself in hand, he thinks for a moment: what if he hadn't left the bed? What if he kissed Wade awake? Would Wade blink awake with a sleepy smile, would he hum with pleasure and kiss back, would they fuck slow and lazy there on the pull-out couch as the sun rises, face to face, breathing together? What kind of sounds would Wade make when he--
Logan fucking hates himself as he comes. Recovers, trembling. Rinses his mess off the shower wall and down the drain.
He doesn't need more than this.
He doesn't.
-
"What do you mean, he can vaporize people?"
"I mean he can vaporize people," Colossus says, "and he has."
"Okay," Logan says with a shrug, "he can't vaporize adamantium. I'll be fine. Go in, grab the kid, and--"
"Um, peanut? Your skeleton is adamantium, but if this guy sandblasts all the organic matter off it, you are fucked."
"Plus, we don't know where he is. The good news is he's an idiot," Negasonic pipes up from where she stands, arms crossed, leaning against a wall. "He's got no finesse. It's all or nothing."
Wade flicks over the report. "Looks like he blows his load and that's it," he murmurs. "Has to recharge for a while after that. Why else would he have run off right after his first kill?"
"Unless he was scared."
"He wasn't scared, he called in a fucking bomb threat to his college and blew the dean to shit." Wade scoffs. "He's a dumb kid with power issues, I've dealt with a hundred of 'em, they're nothing special."
-
"Don't do anything fucking stupid when we go after this kid, okay?"
Wade smiles, turns his head to look at Logan across the pillow.
"Aw, peanut. 'S cute that you're worried."
"I'm not fuckin' worried. I'm just not gonna make rent if you get your dumb ass killed."
"Sure. Don't you worry your cute little kitty ears over it, babygirl." Wade reaches out and tousles Logan's hair, and Logan growls, jerks his head out of Wade's reach and bats his hand away a little harder than necessary. "Would I really do anything that stupid?"
-
It happens before Logan can stop him.
"Hey, kiddo!" Wade chirps, leaping over a desk toward a kid who can't be older than Negasonic and stands at a lanky sixish feet. "You still focus-grouping that superhero name or are you super married to Boomslang? Because honestly I think it could use some workshopping and I am more than happy to offer my opinions!"
"Stay the fuck back!" the kid cries, energy crackling in his outstretched palms. "I'll fucking do it!"
Wade casually walks closer. "What about Cottonmouth? Still with the snake theme but rolls off the tongue a little better, I think."
"Wade," Logan warns, genuine fear lurching in his stomach as the thing in his brainstem shakes hard. "Wade, do not let him touch you."
"He's not gonna touch me, isn't that right, Boomy?" Wade fearlessly steps closer. "You don't wanna do any more killing. You wanna come home with me and my friends and we can make you a nice mug of hot cocoa and watch The Breakfast Club, okay?"
"Deadpool, stand down," Colossus rumbles. Wade ignores him, takes yet another little step forward.
Wade shakes his head. "You know what you did today, right, Boomer? You killed people. A couple people. We can help you. We can make that go away." Wade gives a vague, wiggly hand gesture. "The thing is, you're either gonna walk out of here nicely with us, or you're not walking out at all."
"I swear to god, you red bitch, I can end you and I will," Boomslang seethes.
The kid's eyes are wild like a frightened animal, whites visible all around his irises; foam flecks at the corners of his mouth.
"Wade, he's not fuckin' kidding," Logan warns, the thing in his skull shaking harder with every step Wade takes. "Stand down."
"I know what I'm doing, okay, honey badger? Just stay back," Wade says, the very picture of calm, then turns his eyes back to the kid.
"No, you don't know what you're doing! I'll--I'll kill you!"
"Y'know, I'm seeing a lot of posturing and not a lot of killing, kiddo! You thought any about my offer? Cocoa? Ally Sheedy? It doesn't even have to be The Breakfast Club, we could do Sixteen Candles, really any of the John Hughes oeuvre works for me--"
"Fuck you!"
Logan has no goddamn idea what Wade's plan is, but Wade is acting with all his usual confidence, and Logan is rooted to the spot, lest he ruin this. Everything in Logan wants to rush between them, wants to push Wade away, but if he makes a move too fast then the kid's going to startle and blow his stack and it's fucking over.
All he can do is trust Deadpool.
Huge mistake.
"Grumpy little snake, huh?" Wade clicks his tongue. "Come on. Let's talk this over in the car, you'll feel so much better in the morning."
Wade looks back over to Logan, briefly. Just a split second of eye contact through the whites of his mask.
And then before Logan can stop him, Wade's closed the distance and reached out for the kid's shoulder.
A friendly, easygoing gesture.
He's not even fucking armed.
For one interminable half-second, Logan knows what is going to happen before it does, and he can't move fast enough to stop it. The kid grasps Wade's wrist and there's a horrific bang, like thunder close-up, like air sucked from a space and then rushing back in.
The thing inside Logan's brainstem screams, shakes, tears apart, falls silent.
Where Wade once stood is a small puff of water vapor that dissipates instantly in the cold room. The kid stands there, eyes wild, teeth bared.
Colossus moves fast, but Logan moves faster.
-
Logan hardly remembers anything between Wade's death and now, where he stands with the rest of the team back at the mansion.
Colossus's arms each have three shallow gashes in them.
"I'm sorry."
"It is nothing, my friend. Do not worry," Colossus replies softly. "It will come out with a little blacksmithing."
"What happened?" Beast asks the moment he and the Professor enter the room, eyes wide as he takes in the sight before him, Logan coated in blood and viscera. "What..."
Logan can hardly string words together, the emptiness inside him yawning. Fortunately, Negasonic takes up the slack. "Our team was the one to find Boomslang. Colossus, Wolverine, and Deadpool got him cornered while Squirrel Girl, Yukio, and I covered the exits."
"Eloise," the Professor asks, slowly, like he already knows the answer, "where is Deadpool?"
Negasonic closes her eyes. Takes a long, shaky breath. "Deadpool tried to talk him down. It didn't work."
"That's not what he was doing," Logan says, hollow. "He wasn't trying to talk him down. He was baiting out the attack on purpose so we could get him."
"I think he hoped to convince him. He never drew his weapon on the boy," Colossus rumbles. "And after the boy killed Wade, Logan..."
Colossus trails off. Logan can't meet Charles' eyes. "I see," the Professor says, gentle. Too gentle to a man who murdered a boy the way Logan had. "Piotr, Eloise... why don't you two take Logan home now."
Negasonic and Colossus nod, each laying a hand on one of Logan's shoulders.
"I don't need babysitting," Logan says, weakly. "This ain't the first friend I've lost. Won't be the last." He snorts an unhappy laugh. "Besides. It's not like I can kill myself."
His little half-joke doesn't go over well. "Humor me, Logan," Charles says. "You oughtn't be alone."
Logan shrugs, too wrung-out to protest further.
-
Colossus takes the dog for a walk first thing while Negasonic roots in the freezer, grabs a bottle of vodka, and silently hands it to Logan.
Smart girl. He flicks the cap off the bottle and takes a deep pull.
The vodka hurts all the way down, not because of the alcohol--he's used to that, alcohol hasn't burned his throat in a century, no matter the proof--but because it's sub-freezing. He grunts, shakes his head as if to clear the pain, sets the bottle down.
The apartment is silent.
"Where's Al?" Negasonic asks.
"In Vegas. For a friend's birthday." God willing, Althea is gambling and drinking and doing mountains of cocaine.
When she gets home, Logan is going to have to tell her Wade's dead. He's going to have to tell Vanessa, and Peter, and Dopinder, and everyone else.
Negasonic nods. "Go take a shower," she tells him, in the kind of tone that leaves no room for argument. He nods, numb. Grabs a change of clothes. Goes into the bathroom and closes the door.
He strips out of his suit, soaked in the dead kid's blood. He dumps it in the sink and turns the shower on. Steps under the hot water and goes through the motions, rote, on autopilot. Washes his hair, his face, his body. Rinses blood and filth down the drain. The whole thing takes maybe five minutes.
Unlike Wade, who takes showers so long and luxurious that he uses up all the hot water and Logan has to wait 20 goddamn minutes for the water to warm up again.
Fuck.
Logan turns the water off, towels himself dry. Dresses in a pair of Wade's pajama pants and one of his old t-shirts.
He hasn't felt this empty in months. Not since Wade found him in that shithole bar, plucked him out of his original universe and gave him a life. Gave him a family. Gave him everything.
He feels dead inside in a way he hasn't for a long, long time.
Negasonic has made up the couch by the time Logan exits the bathroom. She goes into the bathroom after him, puts his suit in a garbage bag, sets it by the door. "Don't just stand there," she says, but it's not angry or mean, "get in bed."
"Not tired."
"Get on the bed. I'll put something on the TV so we don't have to talk about how fucking sad we are."
Logan doesn't have it in him to complain about being told what to do. He gets on the couch and Negasonic settles next to him, grabs the remote and flips open Netflix. She doesn't ask him to make a decision about what to watch, probably guessing--accurately--that Logan couldn't give less of a shit. She selects The Great British Baking Show and Logan's eyes glaze over as the gentle, boring noise attempts to anesthetize his brain.
"Sucks without him here to yell at the bakers," Logan says, unable to arrest the thought before it leaves his mouth.
"Yeah." Negasonic nods. "You wanna watch something different?"
He shakes his head. "Wouldn't know what to pick."
The episode is halfway through when Colossus and Mary Puppins come back through the door. The scent of dough and cheese and tomato wafts in; Colossus got pizza from the place down the block.
The dog bounds up onto the couch and into Logan's arms immediately, attacking his cheek with awful kisses, looking at him with concern in her giant dark eyes like she knows something's wrong but can't quite figure out what it is. Logan's throat hurts as he struggles to keep tears from forming; he tucks Mary Puppins' little head under his chin and holds her close.
Colossus settles on Logan's other side. The couch is not made to hold up the weight of him, and it groans, dips, but doesn't collapse. Logan doesn't say anything.
"Eat," Colossus says, setting the pizza box in Logan's lap.
There's nothing he'd rather do less at the moment than eat. He thinks if he does, he won't be able to keep it down.
"Come on," Negasonic says, "I get it, trust me I do, but he wouldn't want us to starve just because he's fucking dead."
She's right. The pizza is good. Of course it is. Over the episode of Bake-Off he and Negasonic manage to eat four slices between them.
The next episode starts.
The apartment feels so lifeless.
He's lost loved ones before. Lost people he was in love with. Lost wives. Lost partners.
Wade was supposed to be the one he couldn't lose.
Not after they saved every universe, not after they survived the Time Ripper's destruction. Wade wasn't supposed to die like this, to a cruel twenty-year-old with a power complex, not after he lived through becoming a conduit for matter and antimatter, not after they survived the Void and Alioth and Cassandra Nova, not after they moved in together and adopted a dog.
Logan should have kissed him.
Negasonic leans her head on Logan's shoulder. Colossus puts one of his huge arms around them both. He opens his mouth to automatically resist the comfort. And then he realizes they aren't giving comfort.
They're seeking it.
-
Eventually Logan falls asleep there, squished on the couch between a 22-year-old lesbian and a man made of metal.
In his dreams, Wade dies again, and again, and again, and every time, Logan can't save him.
-
Logan wakes up when there's a knock at the door. Colossus is already up and answering it as Mary Puppins barks.
"Ah, Yukio, Laura!" Colossus greets. "Come in, come in."
Negasonic blinks awake next to him, sits up, stretches. He watches as Yukio flits across the room to her girlfriend, kisses her on the cheek. "Hi, sweetie," she says softly. "Hi, Logan."
"Hi, Yukio," Logan greets her. Like Wade would have. He can't bring himself to complain that the house is full of people. They're Wade's family, and this is Wade's apartment.
Logan wants to be alone. Logan doesn't want to be alone. He's grateful for the company. He wishes they'd leave.
"We brought bagels," Yukio says.
Laura is talking in hushed tones to Colossus, who shifts nervously on his feet before nodding and stepping aside. The girl crosses the foyer to approach the couch as Yukio and Negasonic move into the kitchen.
"Morning," she says, reaching out to touch Logan's arm. She perches on the side of the couch. "How're you holding up?"
"Dandy," Logan says. "You?"
"Dandy," she agrees. "I'm sorry, Logan."
"Yeah, well. Me too."
"We're here to grab your suit, take it to get washed. We'll bring it back, don't worry."
"Not worried."
"Okay."
Laura takes a deep breath. Looks away like she doesn't want to say what she's about to say. Like there's a subject she doesn't know how to broach. God, the poor kid really is his daughter. Logan has a good guess as to what the subject is, and he decides to rip the band-aid off rather than force her to do it. "Did Charles send you to tell me the X-Men don't want me back after what I did last night? Cause I'll take the news best from you? That it?"
"Nope."
Logan's mildly surprised. He raises an eyebrow, a silent question.
She meets his eyes, fearless as ever. "Charles sent me to tell you that you are welcome back, that you're still on payroll, but that as far as field work goes, you're benched for a while." She shrugs. "He wanted me to bring you his big stupid three-ring binder full of academy-retained shrinks for you to look over. I told him you wouldn't take that well."
"Smart girl."
"Yeah, he'll probably try to make you go through it with him in a couple weeks."
Logan snorts. Rolls his eyes. "Yeah, well. Good luck to him."
Laura shrugs and moves off into the kitchen. Yukio reappears at Logan's side, gently pushes a toasted blueberry bagel with distressingly pink (strawberry, by the scent) cream cheese on it into his hands along with a glass of milk. "Please eat this," she says, her eyes huge.
The miserable, animal part of him wants to throw it across the room and scream until he can't anymore. The part of him that doesn't want to hurt Wade's friends takes the damn bagel and starts to eat it.
"You all should go," he says. "I'm fine. I have things to do. People to contact."
"The first thing you did last night was make a fucking suicide joke," Negasonic says with her usual perfectly flat affect.
Logan groans. "So it was a bad joke. You want me to apologize?"
"I want you to shut the fuck up and let your friends help you," she says without missing a beat, "because Wade would fucking cry if we didn't."
He hears Laura and Colossus doing the dishes in the kitchen. Coping by finding something to do. Yukio is calmly working through her breakfast, though her eyes are red-rimmed and she smells like tears. Negasonic's eyeliner is smudged from sleeping in it, crying in it. The whole apartment reeks of stress and misery.
Everyone's fucking suffering, and it wouldn't be right for Logan to throw them out.
So Logan shuts the fuck up, and eats his bagel, and then the strangest thing happens.
Something flares to life like fire low in his skull, the thing in his spinal column that he thought had died with Wade shudders into being once again.
He hears a voice like it's bypassing his ears, coming straight from the audio-processing part of his brain.
Hey, peanut, so, there's good news and there's bad news. Which do you wanna hear first?
Huh.
Logan sets down his bagel. Polishes off the glass of milk. Sets both of them down on the side table.
Are you--are you ignoring me? What the fuck? Logan!
"Laura?" he calls out.
"Yeah?"
"Call the Professor, right now, and tell him I'm gonna want to look at that three-ring binder with him later today."
Oh, NOW you want to seek mental health treatment? You're not even crazy! Well, not about this. I'm actually real in here, asshole!
Logan has always figured his healing factor protected him from truly devastating psychiatric breakdowns. Apparently not.
Okay. Listen to me. I need you to look on Mary Puppins' collar.
"Um--okay," Laura says. "You doing all right? I mean, considering?"
"Nope," Logan says.
For the love of--! Peanut, angel face, big boy, kitten whiskers, please just look at the dog's fucking collar and all this is gonna make a whole lot more sense.
Laura pokes her head out of the kitchen, brow furrowed. "What's going on?"
"Just call Charles, okay?"
Peanut, I'm gonna start singing the second act of Frozen in here if you don't get off your shapely ass and look at the damn dog's collar.
The worst part is that it's nice to hear Wade's voice, it's comforting, even if it's a grief-born hallucination. A cold comfort, but one nonetheless; the empty, hollow feeling in his chest is assuaged for just a moment.
Just until the bubble pops and the psychosis lifts.
Okay, listen, if I'm a hallucination, what do you have to lose by just looking at sweet Dogpool's collar? Wouldn't it be nice to cuddle her? She's so cute, right? Don't you miss her? JUST LOOK AT THE DAMN DOG!
He hears Laura from the kitchen. She's on her phone, calling the academy.
Logan, the ghost in his mind begs, apparently giving up on cajoling and yelling. Please.
And, real or not, that's impossible to say no to. "Fuck it," Logan murmurs, and whistles for the dog.
The voice stays silent and Mary Puppins is up on the couch and standing in Logan's lap instantly, front paws parked on his chest so she can make grand attempts to lick his face.
Logan knows he isn't going to find anything there. But he gently maneuvers the dog's suit--load-bearing to her mental health as it is--to get a look at the collar underneath.
Attached to it is a tiny, tiny vial. Maybe the size of Logan's pinky up to the first joint.
It's clear. A red liquid is inside. There is a white label on it, scrawled on with a black Sharpie in handwriting that Logan recognizes.
BLOOD - WADE WILSON
DO NOT DRINK !!!!!!!!!!!!