Vanessa & Wade | Friday Afternoon

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Ice climbing actually happens!


Vanessa swung her ice tool and buried it in the ice up over her head and a bit off to the side. She took a deep breath and then pulled her foot back and kicked at the ice higher up to bury the crampon in. It was a little terrifying trying this on their own after one day of instruction. But Wade had promised she could copy him if she broke anything and that was reassurance enough for Vanessa as she positioned her other tool higher up. Before pulling her second crampon out of the ice she spared a glance at Wade. "You still alive, love? I know our marriage is less than forty-eight hours old, but I'd love to not be a fake widow before we get back home, aye? If you kill yourself, I will be most displeased with you."

Essentially copying Vanessa's movements, Wade set his ice tool, shifted his crampon, and pushed himself upward with his legs. "Just try not to take out your eye with that ax, darlin'," he called, grinning at the memory of her wild swings the day before. "Technically you can grow it back, but it's a bitch and I'll bet it'd be even worse up here with the ice and all. Or in an icy crevasse." Swing, thunk, make sure the ice tool was secure, free one crampon, bury it higher up, repeat everything on the other side. "What kind of benefits do you think you get for being my fake wife if I die?"

"I was thinking more along the lines that if my fake husband's dead I'll be grieving for ages. All alone with no one to annoy the piss out of me by checking the bloody windows on the eighty for a dozen bloody times." She sounded a lot more amused than she had last night. Last night she had been pretty damn bitchy about it. Now Vanessa was tending more toward teasing him. The metamorph fell silent so she could concentrate on the swing of her tool and the shifting of her crampon. She pushed herself up and released a breath she hadn't realized she was holding. "Obviously, I love you. Fake wedded bliss and all. It's the quirks that keep my love new and fresh all the time, see." Another swing and when the ace buried itself in the ice it fractured. Vanessa had to duck out of the way as a chunk of ice came loose and hurtled for the ground at least thirty feet below them. She nearly lost her grip on her tool and her footing in the process.

Wade took a moment to set an ice screw, or protection, as their instructor had told them. If Vanessa was going to go making ice fall on his head, he figured he ought to make sure they wouldn't actually fall to their deaths. "Your safety is of the utmost importance to me," he answered, swinging his tool again and then pushing upward as he followed along behind Vanessa. "Set an ice screw before your next swing," he reminded her. "I just wanted to make sure no one was going to come through the window in the middle of the night to try to take you away, that's all."

"Hold on tight enough, sweetness, and you won't have to worry about it, will you?" She looked down at him under her her arm and smiled. "I am only as kidnapable as your grip is lax." Screws were easy. That she could do while talking at least. Once her screw was set Vanessa swung her axe again and buried it more solidly in the ice above her. It was funny that the hard part was the ice tool, not the pushing herself up with her legs. That bit she was used to from rock climbing and her legs were strong from running and swimming. It was good to have some sort of advantage here.

"I'd much rather just kill the people before they get close enough to kidnap you," Wade said, shifting his feet up again. It took him a few moments to get the crampon in properly and he had to kick it into the ice three times before he was confident that he wouldn't wind up plummeting to a painful recovery period at the bottom of a frozen waterfall. "I mean, I know you can kill them yourself, dearest, but you have to let me have my moment of protecting you or... something. Of course, I kind of think it'd be sexy to see you defending your own honor our whatever, so. Maybe I'll just watch and make sure they don't send in assistance."

"Can't you protect me while making sure I don't freeze in bed?" Vanessa pushed herself up again and reminded herself to set an ice screw. "Do you have to look out for me at the window while keeping me awake? That's just poor strategy." With the rope set into the new screw Vanessa swung her axe and even wiggled it to be sure it was secure before pulling out her crampon. "How do you feel about women covered in blood? I sleep with knives. They make it messy when I take care of them myself."

"So long as you take a shower and we change the sheets, I have no problem with you being covered in the blood of your attackers," Wade answered, setting another ice screw himself and making sure the rope was secure before moving on up. "And I guess I could protect you from the bed. If it'll keep you from chucking pillows at me and disrupting my concentration. It's just..." He pushed himself upward again. "You're really fucking distracting."

That made her stop and look down at him. "I was asleep and I have it on good authority that I don't snore so how am I distracting when I'm unconscious?"

"You're there," Wade answered, looking up at her and grinning. "And you cuddle. It's distracting." He pushed himself upward after swinging his tool again, then tipped his head back so he could say more seriously, "I'm not really used to sleeping in the same bed as somebody else. I'm on hyper alert when I am. I might be able to get used to it, but until then, you're distracting."

She considered refuting the claim that she cuddles but Vanessa was pretty damn sure that was true. There were worse things to be in your sleep, like lethally gaseous. "You can't turn your hyper alert off and that's why you wanted to sleep on the covers instead of under them and on the couch the first night? While I get that habit is habit and you can't turn it off, you realize if someone breaks in and tries to kill me that I can handle it, aye? I sleep alone almost every night and somehow I survive." She shook her head and concentrated on moving up the frozen cascade of waterfall.

She was distracting because she both existed and she cuddled. "Would I be less distracting if I managed to not cuddle?" She wasn't even sure how that had happened in the first place. She had been cuddling her pillow and she'd woken up with him -- "Hey. I woke up with you curled up around me. Doesn't that make you the one guilty of cuddling? I had a pillow. I was cuddling my pillow." Vanessa was nearly certain that with her pillow and the knowledge that Wade was off limits that she wouldn't have drifted unless she was cold. Had she been cold?

"You looked cold," Wade answered. "Also, yes. I do understand you can take care of yourself. The couch thing, it's more... respect. I am not actually going to try to get handsy and it's like. Demonstrating I have..." He paused to swing his ax again because it really hadn't sounded quite right when it went in with that last one. "Manners," he finished a moment later, pushing himself upward. "And no nefarious intentions. Or ulterior motives." And there was that whole propriety thing, but he was maybe kind of giving up on that, considering it'd gotten pillows chucked at him in the middle of the night.

Wade had manners. She hadn't exactly doubted it but he was such a flirt that she hadn't exactly considered it either. Wade had manners and he didn't want to sleep in a bed with her because of them. That was so...old fashioned. Vanessa shook her head, a faint whisper of a smile on her face and advanced upward again. When she stopped to set a new screw she allowed herself the split focus of speaking again. "I wouldn't have assumed you had ulterior motives. I may be stupidly tactile and physically affectionate and flirtatious but I'm not actually going to jump any person in bed with me or assume that they're going to jump me. I was topless while showing you my scars, I feel pretty confident in assuming you're not going to try anything untoward. Even if invited to." Her axe swung again.

"Untoward," Wade said, "is an awesome word." He set another ice screw himself, then paused to look up the massive wall of ice they were climbing. "God, this is beautiful - how much longer until we get to the top? An hour? There abouts?"

Vanessa looked up to the top, trying to judge how far they had come versus how much farther they had to go. "Yeah, maybe thereabouts. Coming down is going to be slower and possibly harder." It was one thing to go up, but going down you were more blind. Still, Wade was right. This was beautiful.

"I could just jump," Wade offered, grinning. "From the top, I mean. It'll hurt like a motherfucker, but then I can do that thing with the rope so it's faster for you." Which was absolutely not true. He'd probably break half the bones in his body and wind up laying on the ground for forty-eight hours while they healed. He waggled his eyebrows at Vanessa.

"You've got a healing factor," she told him, "but you're not invulnerable. Did you miss that bit about me not wanting to be a widow before we get home? I know we'll be divorcing, or amicably separating, somewhere in lower New York state, but if you die because you've jumped off a fifty foot frozen wafterfall, broke your ribs and one skewered your heart then I'll have to bring your body back. And your headstone will read: Wade Wilson, Beloved Fake Husband and Idiot. You wouldn't want that, would you?"

"I guess not," Wade said, pouting a little before swinging his ax again. "Damn you and your logic..."