Artie & Wade | Late Wednesday Morning

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Artie's making chili in the microwave and Wade wants some water. So they say hello.


Artie was in the common kitchen, a microwave dinner spinning around and around as it slowly defrosted. He'd already gotten sick of watching it rotate and had pulled a quarter out of his pocket, amusing himself by flipping it over and over, coming up with alternating heads and tails as he slapped an illusion over the coin as he caught it each time.

Wade wandered into the main kitchen with a towel draped around his neck, his workout cloths kind of gross. He'd been running in the weight room and definitely needed some water before he tackled the stairs going up to the third floor - because elevators were for wimps. Catching sight of the spinning coin, Wade then looked at the kid tossing it and offered him a friendly handwave even as he grabbed a glass to get some water.

Artie nodded in reply before pulling his food out of the microwave as it beeped again. He flipped the coin again (heads, heads and heads) while he waited for his food to cool enough to handle and scrawled "you're Wade, right?" on the notebook he habitually carried and snapped his fingers to catch Wade's attention.

Glancing over at the pad of paper, his glass of water upended now as he finished it off, Wade went for a refill and nodded. "Yeah - who're you?"

He held up one finger, signalling wait, and scribbled "Artie. So what's ur deal with powers anyway?"

"My deal with powers?" Wade considered that for a moment, then shrugged. "I want 'em to work better. What about you?" If the kid was going to ask blunt questions, then the mercenary would return the favor.

Artie thought about it for a moment before grinning and scrawling "probability manipulator. I come to the casino with you and you walk home a rich man."

"Right up until you have some kinda luck snap backward or whatever and security finds sixteen thousand dollars worth of chips in your shoe," Wade said, drinking his second glass of water much faster than the first. He took a breath, then grinned back at the kid. "Not that that's ever happened to me or anything. I'm totally still allowed in Las Vegas."

Artie nodded sagely. "why do you think I haven't tried it yet? Well, that and wanting to finish school before going to jail."

"Good plan," Wade said, nodding. He refilled his glass for the third time and downed it, too, then put the glass on the counter. "I mean, technically, you can still get your education in prison and stuff, but I don't think universities like jail house degrees as much as regular ones."

"I hear they hate them. it's totes unfair."

"Totes?" Wade tipped his head to the side. "You do realize that's, like, a bag or something, right? Girls carry them around."

Artie gave Wade the finger while he wrote "do you want me to spend all day writing this shit out or not? Because I can."

"I think you should eat your food," Wade said, pointing to the cooling tasty morsels in question.

"It's still too hot. I have this funky tongue thing going on," he took a moment to demonstrate, flicking his tongue in and out of his mouth, "so I don't like food that's too hot."

"How's that tie in with the probability manipulation?"

"You'll have to ask my mom." Artie shrugged.

"Is she hot?"

"I got no freaking idea." Artie finally picked up his food, gulping down a couple of forkfuls of microwave chili.

"Damn," Wade said, shaking his head. "Oh well." Turning, he headed for the door because Jesus, did he ever need a shower. "Nice meeting you, kid. Careful with the hot stuff there."

Artie waved briefly before gulping down a few more bites of chili, stopping after a moment to wave a hand in front of his mouth, eyes watering.

Wade made a rather abrupt turn back toward the cupboard and got down a second glass that he filled with cold water. "What part of 'be careful' don't you get?"

He made a slight gargling noise and picked up the pen again. "THIS IS CAREFUL --> SPICY!"

Snorting, Wade dumped out the water and got milk out of the fridge. After pouring a glass, he slid it across the counter to the kid. "Bread might be helpful, too."

Artie forgot himself as he picked up the milk, food still held in his other hand and projected a quick "thanks but what are you, my mom with the milk and the bread?" in the air in front of him.

"Well, somebody needs to make sure you don't season your forked little tongue off," Wade pointed out. And then he pointed at the words floating in the air. "Either you've got three mutations, which isn't necessarily unheard of but is kind of rare, or you're lying about something."

Artie thought it over for a moment. What would Doug do? Doug wouldn't have messed up by forgetting about his powers is what Doug would do, no matter how spicy the microwave chili was. He could try to sell the three mutations line and it would work right up until Wade demanded a demonstration. Which he probably would since, hey, he already knew Artie wasn't quite straight with him and he might not be able to fake it then. No, better to cut his losses. "I have this funky image projection power. So you probably still want me to come with if ur playing poker and I'll give you nothing but full houses. Without a luck snap even."

"Image projection," Wade said, tipping his head to the side as he considered the kid. That... could be useful. "What kinds of stuff can you project? I mean, what kinds of images? Still lives? Just words? How realistic can you make stuff look?" He had to stop himself - he wasn't recruiting. That was part of the deal. No matter how useful the practical applications of another mutant's powers might be on particular jobs. Wade wasn't working while he was here.

"How large do you need it to be? The bigger it is, the harder it is" Artie asked and, concentrating, looped the words into a circle and sent them sailing around Wade's head. He'd had to watch crappy windows screen savers for hours to learn that one. "and yeah, I do images." A little, knee high 2-d version of Wade popped up on the bench before vanishing and Artie replaced it with his current crowning glory, a perfect $20 bill.

"That one'll come in handy," Wade said, nodding approvingly at the twenty dollar bill. "Can you do 3D people?"

Artie bit his lip and seesawed a hand back and forward before looking outside. The figure, back amongst the trees, was clearly 3D and far enough away that the the lack of detail wasn't obvious. He let it go and shrugged, scrawling "I'm not too good at lifesized with detail, you know? esp. not 3D w detail."

"That's a pretty awesome power," Wade said, nodding his appreciation of that fact. "I'll bet you get better the more you practice and stuff. You should keep trying on small stuff with the details. The larger stuff'll probably follow easier that way."

"I'm still working on it." Artie flipped the coin again, catching it in mid air and, biting his lip in concentration, he pulled his hand away to reveal an illusionary spinning coin and tilted his head to one side, looking at Wade. "u know most ppl either want me to make them fake id or think this is the lamest power ever, right?"

Grinning, Wade walked back toward the door. "Most people don't think like I do," he offered, giving the kid a small salute.

Artie grinned back and picked up his sorely neglected chili, eating it a little more slowly this time.