Marie-Ange & Wade | Wednesday Evening (backdated)

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Marie-Ange and Wade have dinner at a nice Egyptian place and hammer out a few details about their relationship.


Wade wasn't really the kind of guy who did 'fancy' stuff really well. He could clean up with the best of them, of course, and had done so on multiple occasions, but it just wasn't his natural state of being. However he really liked food and he really liked Marie-Ange, so he figured a nice restaurant would be appropriate. After all, he hadn't been lying to Klara when he'd said his google-fu was strong - and his google-fu had led him to Casa La Femme, which apparently had excellent Egyptian cuisine.

Sitting back in his chair after their waiter had taken away the plates from the last course, he toyed with his water glass and tipped his head to the side just a bit. "How was everything?"

"It was excellent. I have not had Egyptian since.. the last time I was in Egypt." Marie-Ange said. "And that was hotel food, which is always awful because it is meant for tourists." She still had a glass of wine, and the slightly relaxed feeling of good food and drink. "You seem to have good luck to find good restaurants. Or talent and skill at finding them."

Grinning, Wade shrugged. "I just thought somewhere authentic might be nice." Authentic was important when it came to good food, he'd found. And they'd had an extensive wine list, which he'd thought might be good, too. "I'm glad you enjoyed it all." He wanted to ask how their wine had measured up to the bottle he'd sent her, but that didn't really strike him as the gentlemanly thing to do.

Generally speaking, Wade tried really hard to act like a gentleman where women were concerned. Or at least he tried to act like not quite so much of a guy about things. "It's like I told my third minion - my google-fu is strong."

The term got a laugh. Marie-Ange had heard it before, but never quite so earnestly. "You have acquired yet another minion? Are you sure you are not trying to take over the world?" Actually, now that she thought about it, it seemed too blatant for someone genuinely trying to do harm. Magneto did not call his minions "minions", he just tricked teenaged boys into believing in his cause.

"Nah, if I was going to take over the world, I'd be way more stealthy about it," Wade said, still grinning. "I mean, the main qualification my minions need at the moment is the ability to cook. Because I can make a mean burger, but God help you if I try anything that doesn't involve a grill. Minion Number Three can bake the best banana nut bread I've ever tasted. Next time I can get her to make some, I'll save you a slice or two. Apparently she makes really good jam, too."

"I am afraid I am out of the running for Minionship then." Marie-Ange said, faux-sadly. "I burned water trying to make ramen noodles once." Her inability to cook was legendary. "Which one is number three? I know that Kevin and Meggan are your minions. Who else have you acquired?" She did not even know some of the new children. Not even the ones who had arrived before she left.

"Klara," Wade said, smiling. "She's quiet but wow, her roses wind up with thorns as big as my hand and she said she thought she could make the plants swing them to help her defend herself, which I thought was pretty nifty. Theoretically, she could probably actually make the plants just chuck the thorns, kind of like you would a throwing knife, but she says she doesn't think that'd be really nice and why would I want to make the plants lose bits of themselves like that? She has kind of a point." And he probably shouldn't have been discussing how to weaponize the kids' powers. Between her and Artie, man - he was gonna wind up getting himself in trouble. At least Meggan could just float away. And well. Kevin's defensive capabilities were kind of best summed up with 'organic decay,' weren't they?

"Oh, the other girl like the pink girl, whose name I cannot remember. One of the ones whose name begins with a C." There were so many of them. "I would hope someone is at least teaching her to use her powers to defend herself." Marie-Ange said, speculatively. "Control over plants seems so very versatile. I cannot think of many places on Earth that do not have some kind of plant."

"I don't think I've met the girl whose name starts with C and is pink," Wade said, quirking a smile, "But what you said about versatility, yeah. That was my thought. Work with what you've got. Nobody expects the tiny chick to have roses explode out of the ground around her with thorns seriously as big as my hand, I cannot even get over that. For a second there, I thought she was going to skewer me with them. Instead, she made me bread. It was awesome." It was nice to know he wasn't the only person who thought it'd be a good idea to help the kids learn to use their powers defensively.

Or, y'know. Offensively. Whatever floated their boats.

"I know we have the green one who is offensive. The pink one also controls plants, but I cannot remember her name." Marie-Ange explained. "Yes, exactly. This is why I am always polite, because it is sometimes both tricky and dramatic when I pull a very large sword out of nowhere while I am wearing hundred dollar shoes!" Invariably, it ruined the shoes to get into a fight, though. "So instead of being eaten by plants, you got to eat banana bread. Did she make the bananas?"

"No, I bought them at the grocery store," Wade said, laughing a little. "But I'll ask her about getting a banana tree or something. I'm not sure about the mechanics of her powers - I'll bet it takes something out of the ground or whatever to do that and she winds up putting it back when she makes them shrink." He thought her method of remembering which girl did what at the mansion was kind of funny - he'd never considered just using their colors as identifiers. "Can you really do that, though? Pull a sword out of nowhere?"

Demonstrating the sword at full size was not an option. They were in the middle of a restaurant. So after Marie-Ange pushed her sleeve up to show the tattoo, the sword that she created from the image was no larger than a steak knife. Still made to match the repeating pattern on her arm perfectly, but very small. "Not quite nowhere, I have to have something to copy from, but generally it looks to just appear out of nothing."

"That," Wade said, pointing at the miniature sword, "Is awesome." Reaching over, he touched the very end of the weapon with his fingertip. "May I?" He'd never seen someone do something like that before. Artie had made things seem real, but his work had been holographic. "Or do you have to stay in contact with it?"

"It is quite solid until I ask it to go away, or it is too damaged to continue existing." Which was harder to explain than she'd quite expected, Marie-Ange realized. "Sometimes if I hit something with an image, it turns into, er, a sort of ectoplasm like that Ghostbusters movie? The image turns into ectoplasm, not the thing that was hit." She clarified. "There is a very long very scientific name for what I do, but I always get it wrong unless someone who knows the science is around to correct me."

He held his hand out, taking the teeny tiny sword and flipping it in the air before grinning. It was totally corporeal. And sharp - if Wade hadn't been as good with his hands as he was, he probably would have sliced his fingers up when he caught it. "Ectoplasm is like. Goo or something, right?"

"Sticky wet goo made from psionic powers. Or ghosts." Marie-Ange explained. "Technically I am a psi but everyone always assumes I can read their mind when I say that." She concentrated on the sword and duplicated it, and the copy fell to the table with a oddly hollow sound. "I can make anything I can see, but bigger and more complex things become difficult, and if they are destroyed I go to bed with a migraine headache."

Wade had an entirely inappropriate thought about the words 'sticky' and 'wet' where Marie-Ange were concerned, which reminded him. "So are you and the Mountie an item, Miss Colbert?" He found her powers fascinating, as evidenced by the fact that he was still toying with the sword, but he felt like he should at least know if he was pursuing her in vain. Because he'd realized as soon as he bought that wine that he was, in fact, pursuing her. Wade wasn't the kind of guy who minded competition, necessarily, but he also wasn't the sort of guy who went around stealing other guy's girls. Because, despite everything, where women were concerned... he had manners, damn it.

Marie-Ange tilted her head. "No, we just flirt and sometimes sleep together when I am single. I think?" She liked Garrison, and liked him in bed, but it was very clear they could never have a serious relationship. He would have to keep arresting her. "He and I dated once, but we broke up and our careers are incompatible. He is a policeman and I am.. very much the opposite of that." Which meant "career criminal" but she was not sure it counted if you were a career criminal for the benefit of everyone else.

"Just checking," Wade said, leaning back in his chair and balancing the miniature sword on the tip of his index finger. He picked the second one up with his free hand and then balanced it on the tip of his middle finger, concentration apparently on keeping the two knives from falling to the table as he said, "I'm a mercenary. On hiatus for the moment while I get my mutation stuff worked out, but yeah. Mercenary." He'd kept his voice quiet so only she could hear, knowing the music and the clatter of silverware from other tables around them would hide his words.

Marie-Ange went all serious for a moment, and very briefly, her eye twitched, and she winced. "Wet work, or just regular for hire?" She did not seem shocked, just mildly surprised. "That does explain why you were so comfortable finding out that I do not have a typical career path."

"Wetwork," Wade confirmed. "That was most of what I did for a good few years, but with the issues I've been having with my mutation, I switched over to protection details for the most part. And yeah, I'm not really into being hypocritical." At least not when it didn't suit him, anyway. Flipping the knives in the air again, Wade caught one in each hand and laid them gently on the table in front of Marie-Ange, hilts first. "I figured if I was going to make my intentions known, you should have all the information. Cause once they get this thing with my healing factor figured out, I'll probably start taking jobs again. They could go anywhere from two weeks to six months. And there's other stuff, too. I can tell you, if you want to know, but if you don't, we don't have to go there."

"Other "stuff"?" Marie-Ange asked as she took the returned miniature swords, and then made them disappear without a trace. "Now that you have brought it up, I am curious." She flashed a smile, hoping to seem reassuring, rather than just nosy. "Considering that my job literally has had us fight a Nazi whose body was made of bees, and I routinely disappear to Europe without being able to do more than text, I do not think anything you have to share, or that you will go on jobs is going to bother me. As you say, 'not really into being hypocritical.'"

Well that... was promising. And not exactly what Wade had been expecting. He quirked a small smile. There were belly dancers in the middle of the room, but he wasn't paying them any attention. "Okay... so. Other stuff." He considered what he should tell her next. The mercenary work hadn't seemed to phase her, but who knew how she'd react to his 'other stuff?' "I was born in 1960. My healing factor keeps me from looking my age."

Just in case, she counted the math on her fingers twice, because if you were going to say something like "You are fifty-one?!" then you should be certain that 2011 minus 1960 was in fact, fifty-one and that you were not about to make a fool of yourself because there had been a few drinks. "That explains all of the sneaky attempts to pay the cheque." Marie-Ange said, after her surprised utterance, and blinking a few times.

"My sneaky, successful attempts to pay," Wade said, still smiling a little. She didn't seem put off by the information. Just surprised. "I'll be fifty-one in August." The smile faded around the edges a bit. He wasn't sure he really wanted to tell her what his problem with his mutation was, since it wasn't really an x-gene problem or a powers control issue. But in the interest of being honest, he forged on. "All that aside, I should probably go ahead and tell you what's up with my healing factor. The thing of it is... nobody seems to know. See, I've got cancer. It's this hairy cell leukemia thing, and it's supposed to be really treatable. But I really shouldn't have the cancer at all, since I've got the healing factor. I did chemo and immunotherapy at the mansion, which should'e knocked it out, but... it's still there. So yeah. That's the other bit of 'stuff' I mentioned."

Marie-Ange wasn't entirely sure how to react to the news that someone she'd been on a few dates with had cancer. Cancer was this horrible thing that killed people, and not in any of the ways she actually knew how to kill people with. It was actually frightening, mostly because you could not do very much about it sometimes. You could not go out be a superspy to fight cancer. She sat quietly and toyed with her napkin and finally, all she could ask is "How bad is the cancer? What, ah, Stage, is that the term? is it?"

"Technically, they stuck me in a group, according to Doc Jean. Stages are for cancers that spread or something. Mine's in my blood, so... there's not much more spreading it can do, y'know? But they treated it, so that means I was stuck in the progressive group. I have this feeling it didn't do much good, so Doc Jean and Doc Hank say I'll probably wind up in the refractory group. They could try to remove my spleen, but I think I'd just grow it back..." Wade frowned as he considered that - he'd talked over his options with both doctors and they'd all decided that a splenectomy would probably be useless. "I'm still technically waiting on the results from the immunotherapy, though - that's why Mondays sucked so much, by the way. I had my treatments on Mondays."

"Oh." Which seemed like such a small thing to say when someone told you they had cancer. "I think I am confused. You have cancer, but you should not because you have a healing factor, and the treatments may not have worked?" Mutations were so confusing. "What happens now? Do you just... have hairy cells? I do not understand." She knew she should not have gone and made that joke about forbidding boyfriends from dying. It was just poetic injustice now.

"Basically," Wade said, nodding. "I mean, the effects of the cancer itself aren't as bad as all that - I bruise. The bruises stick around longer than they apparently should. I scar when I have to heal major stuff. I get tired when I overextend myself for long periods of time. But after a couple hours, I'm alright again. It's just annoying more than anything else. And the docs, they say they'll keep trying to figure out what's up with my healing factor and the cancer itself." He paused, then shrugged a little. "It hasn't killed me yet and I've been dealing with it for about twenty years." OJ had said something about it maybe killing him in the future, but it was hard to get his head around that when it hadn't managed to before now. He'd just been so damn tired of being tired.

Now the horrified face she'd managed to suppress came out. "You have had cancer for twenty years?" Marie-Ange asked. It was just that she was a little focused on "Potential boyfriend had cancer" and was having serious problems with the entire rest of the conversation. Wade had cancer when she was having her first communion. He had cancer when she manifested her powers for the first time. He had cancer when she was going to Prom. "But your healing factor still works. It is just working slower?"

Wade was a little worried by the look on her face - she'd seemed to be taking everything else so well. "Yeah, it still works. From what my other doctors said, the ones from before I went to Muir and then when I was actually at Muir, they think I just... heal major injuries slower than somebody with my healing factor should. And like I said, I scar. So there's something to that, obviously. But nobody wants to slice me up so they can see how it actually goes about doing the healing, y'know? I can't say I'm really all that interested in being sliced up for science, anyway..." He trailed off, though, and frowned a little.

OJ had also said the cancer might kill him if they dampened his powers, however they intended to that... or that his healing factor might actually kill him if they got rid of the cancer. He was kind of in a catch-22 here and it occurred to him that it really wasn't fair to stick Marie-Ange in the middle of it. She had her whole life ahead of her and whatever he might feel, however much he might like her... was it right for him to saddle her with all this? "I'm sorry - maybe I shouldn't have brought all this up." He'd been there when his mom got sick, he'd seen what it did to her, lived through it all from the other side. Wade didn't feel like he should ask anyone to do that. Especially not someone he liked as much as he liked Marie-Ange.

It took Marie-Ange a moment, but she managed to compose herself, and then nodded. "So, you are not going to die from the cancer, and you are not going to turn old all of a sudden, and you have a questionable career and are older than you look." She tilted her head to the side, looked at Wade very oddly, and then blinked. "You do not know anyone named Logan or David North, do you?" There was something... but she could not put her eye on what, and for all she knew, it was one of those strange flickers that told her someone could have had a different present than they did.

"Correct on all fronts," Wade said. He figured he wasn't lying, since he wasn't going to die immediately from the cancer - only if they dampened his healing factor, probably. He didn't actually know how they'd go about doing that, so it didn't seem like a big deal at the moment. "And... I don't think so? Why? Should I? You're giving me a funny look."

Marie-Ange tried to laugh off the question. "Everyone I know with your background knows one of them, I think." Perhaps not though. And it had been an abrupt change of subject. And laughing it off was clearly not going to work - Wade wasn't stupid, and he had been apologetic about telling her about the cancer, and she owed him something like an explanation. "It is a precognitive... thing? I do not have a good explanation. Ah, you should know I was doing a little bit of a background check on you. Which seems so rude in hindsight, but it has not been a good month for my team." She gave him a smile. "I think I can try to, ah, well, perhaps not pretend the cancer is not there but at least not be quite so alarmed in the future?"

"I can't be entirely certain that I don't know one of them," Wade said, figuring honesty was the best policy still. "I've... gone by quite a few names in the past and it's possible they have, too. I might know of them by reputation or... not at all." He shrugged, then quirked a smile. "What'd you find out about me when you did your background check?" This identity was pretty much squeaky clean, even though it still incorporated most of his recent mercenary jobs. "You'll just... need to tell me if the cancer thing gets to be too much. I'd understand."

"All I have had time to find out was that you were in the military, and that you left, ah, honorably." Marie-Ange said. "I am going to disregard what they said your age was, because either they are wrong or you are lying and why would you lie about being fifty-one?" Here, this was something she was more comfortable with, being nosy and poking into people's lives. "Cancer is... well, perhaps we could say it is not the worst thing I have had to consider in relationships."

"Fifty," Wade said, his smile widening just a little. "I'm not fifty-one just yet. And I lied about it because the military doesn't knowingly accept mutants. At least not publicly. If they'd found out I was fifty - or forty-four at the time - and looked the way I do now, it would've been suspicious. I'm... not sure I want to know what those other things would've been that were worse than cancer when it comes to your past relationships." She was so young - less half his age. She shouldn't have had to deal with things worse than cancer. He felt like such a dirty old man.

"Wade..." Marie-Ange started. "Maybe you should know. It might help put it into perspective? I work with one of Interpol's most wanted criminals. My best friend talks to cities. I smothered an old man so he would not turn the whole world into 1954. My best contact with the Middle East is a old man whose brain almost ate the entire Astral Plane." Oh, how she did not like Farouk at all, and would be glad when he was gone. Perhaps. "One of my ex-boyfriends is a police officer who can bench press a car and the other once got fed to a giant meat computer so we could save New York. As long as the cancer is not going to kill you, I am just going to consider it another strange quirk." She did not have a normal life and never would.

"Ah... well. Okay," Wade said, nodding like that all made sense. "Cancer seems positively tame compared to all that." Then he paused and tipped his head to the side. "What, exactly, is a meat computer?"

And she had not even had to go into Asgard, Remy channeling the voudoun spirit of death or that she'd slept with the head of the New Orleans Assassin's Guild. Marie-Ange considered having to explain Mastermold a fair price. "A computer made of brains. It was the very wrong product of a Russian scientific experiment." The rest of the explanation was so very not being shared unless she had to. "I have a very disturbing job sometimes."

Wade didn't say anything for a long moment, just considered her answer and then nodded slowly. "I agree. You have a very disturbing job sometimes. Since it apparently involves feeding people to brains. But that's okay. I can accept the weirdness of your job, since you don't seem to mind all the baggage I'm carrying." Then he smiled. He wasn't sure if this made things sort of official or not. But he had told her he had intentions - did he have to be more specific than that? He realized people didn't actually talk that way anymore, that stating he had intentions didn't necessarily mean the same thing now that it meant back in the day. But he also didn't know if he wanted to push it right now.

"I would be a hypocrite if I minded your past, and I can stop fretting about the cancer if you promise it is not going to... " Marie-Ange waved a hand. "Oh, I do not know, cause you to die abruptly in my bedroom or something awful like that." Technically he'd seen her bedroom, in so far as it was 'the guest room in Amanda's apartment where she kept her things', although eventually she'd have to probably move back into the apartment she'd vacated when she and Doug had moved in together. Moving was such a pain. "If nothing else, Percy would be upset. The penguin likes you."

Grinning, Wade said, "Oh, that's good. I like the penguin, too. And I promise it won't make me die abruptly in your bedroom." He even held his hand up like he was swearing an oath. Of course, then he had to let his grin widen just a little because, well. Future trips to Marie-Ange's bedroom. Which only served to remind him of his conversation with Kevin and the question of how to rephrase the sentiment 'I want you to get naked with me.' Wade still hadn't figured that one out. And since he wasn't sure it was a good idea to push things at the moment, he didn't know if he should worry about it, anyway. He couldn't stop his eyebrows from waggling a bit, though, as he asked, "So I get to see your bedroom again?"

He was cute, and seemed to have no problem with her job, and he'd been honest about his background, and that always helped, because she could be honest with him about the more awful parts of her job. Marie-Ange smiled, and finished the last of her glass of wine, and fidgeted slightly, because really, she was not often forward, but Wade had not been and it made a sort of sense if he was from 1960. For all she knew he'd had a letter jacket like Doug's 1954 counterpart did. "That depends." she said. "Are we going to just admire Percy's hat again or are we actually going to use the bed?"

Wade couldn't stop the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when she asked that. "I dunno. Are we gonna be like. Officially dating by the time we get back to your place? I mean the kind of dating where I kinda get to be a bit proprietary sometimes and maybe punch somebody in the face if they grope you?"

It took one long moment for Marie-Ange to answer that without feeling oddly embarrassed. "I was hoping so, but you are not going to try to punch Garrison? Because he can bench press a car. And he likes your moose." The moose was just absurd, but she sort of liked that about Wade. "Also you should... know that I..." Well, this was awkward. There was just no way to be discreet about it. "The job sometimes requires... Wade, I like you but sometimes there is a chance I would have to sleep with someone for the job."

"Is Garrison gonna grope you once he knows we're dating?" Wade felt that was sort of important. The other side of things was... well. Her job in and of itself didn't bother him. He didn't care if she killed people - he kind of thought that was hot. He didn't mind if she was gone for long stretches of time - theoretically, and really he couldn't hold that against her anyway, since he'd probably be taking jobs once he was fixed up. There was just a fundamental difference between those things and her having sex with people - but if it was for the job... Wade understood doing things for the job. "And... well. So far as the other thing... I'm not saying I'd like it, but I wouldn't hold it against you. That said, it's maybe something we could talk about more if it comes up, now that fair warning's been given."

"If it happens I will try to let you know as soon as possible." Marie-Ange said. She certainly could not - and would not -promise to let him know ahead of time, but hopefully he would understand. "It is not usually in my job description, but I do not think it would be fair to not let you know it could happen." Killing someone, that she could feel comfortable not mentioning. The fact that she had a significant amount of money in a bank account from doing just that she was not going to mention - if only because it could get back to her cousin, who did not need to know where his tuition money mysteriously came from. "Garrison is not going to grope me. I like him, but he is... an ex. It was a .. fling is such a ridiculous word, but that is probably the most accurate."

"Then I won't be punching Garrison in the face," Wade said, quirking a smile. "And thanks. I appreciate the heads up that it might happen." He'd have to figure out how to handle it when the came to it, but he'd been truthful when he said he wouldn't hold it against her. "So... now that we've got that straightened out, how about we see about dessert and then walking home?"

"We could get dessert after we walk home..." Marie-Ange said, a little impishly. "There is a gelato shop a few blocks from the Brownstone.."

"Then to the gelato shop we go," Wade said, motioning to their waiter so the man would bring the check.