Marie-Ange & Wade | Thursday Night (backdated)

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Wade takes Marie-Ange on an adventure of sorts when she visits him at Muir Island. One that involves breaking and entering, getting stuck in small spaces, and jokes about priest's holes.


Wade stopped the car a good way down the road from the historically important house he'd read about in one of the many brochures in their bed and breakfast, then turned to Marie-Ange and said, "There is apparently a priest hole in that house." It was obvious from his tone that this was somehow significant.

Marie-Ange couldn't help but laugh, Wade just looked so earnest about it. "There are a great many houses in England with priest holes, I would think." She'd never been to a manor with one, but she was aware of them, at least academically. "At least, the old and crumbling houses. I imagine the new and not as crumbly houses might not have had them. It is not really a feature of modern architecture, no?"

The light was dimming around them even as Wade reached into the pocket on the back of Marie-Ange's seat and pulled out his lock picks. "Correct," he said with a grin. "Which is why I want to climb down in it." He waggled the lock picks beneath her nose. "You in?" Breaking and entering for kicks and giggles - who didn't love that?

"Can I take pictures and make fun if you get stuck?" Of course she was in, it was ridiculous and she could investigate the architecture, and the house was a 'historical site', which meant no one lived there so the risk was minimal, at least by her standards. If Marie-Ange couldn't talk her way out of getting caught, she was in the wrong career. "The priests who used them used to be stuck in them for days sometimes."

"Absolutely," Wade said, still grinning as he opened the door and stepped out. "This needs to be preserved for posterity or something. Especially if I get stuck. Somebody might need the pictures to determine angles and stuff so they can rig up a pulley and get me out." Not that he'd thought about this or anything...

"My degree is in architecture." Marie-Ange offered. "I am sure if you get stuck I can get you out. After I take pictures and make fun." To that end, she went around to the back of the car and took out a small sketchpad from the back seat and tucked it into her shoulder bag. "There, one flashlight, one charcoal pencil, one sketchpad. All any somewhat insane highly creative woman needs to rescue her boyfriend if he gets stuck in a priest hole." She paused, and covered her mouth with one hand, looking awfully innocent. "That sounds dirty."

"That," Wade said, "Sounds very dirty. But this boyfriend is not getting stuck in that kind of priest hole." Extending his arm so Marie-Ange, the mercenary tipped his head toward their target. "My intel says there's a central box for electrical stuff at the back and cutting the wires will disable the security system."

"Good, because priests are supposed to be celibate." Marie-Ange said. "Although really no one believes that." Except the other priests, perhaps. "You have intel on a tourist location? I am not sure I want to know what cover story you gave." She really really did desperately want to know.

"Pssh. Cover stories are for amateurs." Wade paused for a moment, then shrugged and said, "I had a friend hack the security system and give me the details." He grinned again. "It's nice, having friends who can do that sort of thing... especially from across an ocean and half a continent." And for a small fee, of course, but that part wasn't important.

He couldn't have meant Doug... although on second though, Marie-Ange thought, Doug might just have done that sort of thing for giggles maybe. She followed Wade to the back of the house, and only made a few comments about how ridiculous certain styles of architecture were. Just a few though. "There are urban explorers who would start to worship you as a cult hero for this." X-Force kept tabs on the larger group in New York City, just in case they came across the Morlock tunnels or some of the other more interesting things in the city.

"A cult hero?" Wade said, voice only somewhat hushed. "I like the sound of that. But I'll have to get The Wheeze to put it up on the interwebs or what have you. The YouTube uploads are somewhat beyond me." He made his voice sound querulous - or as querulous as he was capable, anyway - and then gestured toward the power box. "One sec - snipping wires I can do."

"The Wheeze?" Marie-Ange asked. "I'm sorry, your hacker friend calls himself The Wheeze, like being out of breath?" She giggled. "And yes, there are whole groups of them who like to break into hidden subway stations and industrial plants. I think Sarah keeps tabs on a few of them, so they do not break into the old tunnels or any of the more dangerous places."

"I just call him The Wheeze. He calls himself Weasel. I like my nickname for him better," Wade said, quirking a smile as he opened the power box and considered all the wires. There was just the main power, Weasel had said, so he found the biggest wire in the box and pulled one of the knives from him boot to slice clean through it. There were still one or two outdoor lights on, but everything that had been glowing through the windows a moment before had winked out.

"Ladies first," Wade said, grinning. "Or would you like me to pick the lock?"

"Are you better at it than I am?" Marie-Ange could pick a lock, but it wasn't really something she specialized in. "I feel like I should have gotten your resume of not entirely legal skills before we set off on this little vacation. Or before the first date, I am not sure." She knew he could fight dirty, and that getting shot hadn't done much to stop him, but the rest she was unsure about.

"My resume of not entirely legal skills is pretty long," Wade said as he reached around to the small of his back and pulled a nifty little cloth tool roll from his waistband. "It includes but is not limited to... lock-picking, jail-breaking, people-shooting, people-stabbing, and people-beating. With sticks, as required or requested. Also, gun-running, information-trading, and a few other odds and ends. Those last couple not so much. Mostly I stick with the people stabbing and shooting. I'm best at those." He led the way to the back door, knelt, and unrolled his tools.

Marie-Ange bit back a giggle, and watched Wade pick the lock. "That is a extensive resume." She commented. "I have never run guns. I think mine is more lying, cheating, bribing and also stabbing. Also telling Jubilee that she is loud. What would that be? Harassing? No, that is too much. Maybe teasing."

"People-teasing," Wade said with a nod. "Sounds about right." Then he tipped his head to the side and actually concentrated on the lock for a moment. It wasn't like people broke into historically significant houses often, especially not ones whose only true thing of value was technically a hole in the floor, so the lock wasn't very complex. A moment later and he was through, rerolling his tools and then standing so he could open the door for Marie-Ange. After closing it behind himself, he pulled a flashlight out of one of his pockets and turned it on. "Priest hole's this way, I think." He was grinning and it was entirely obvious he was actually enjoying himself.

Marie-Ange followed behind, less interested so much in the priest hole - although it was a fascinating piece of history and architecture than interested in letting Wade just be... Wade. He was sort of like a force of nature, you just had to go along with the antics. She did make a few mental notes - bits of archway or structure that were interesting, but in the dark there wasn't a lot to see.

A few moments later and Wade was leaning over what he hoped was the priest hole, shining his light down inside. It had some kind of glass covering over it, maybe to keep people from losing important items like keys or earrings when they were peering into it. And also probably to keep people from doing what he intended to do. Holding the end of the flashlight between his lips, the mercenary very, very carefully started sliding the glass to the side. His voice was mostly muffled by the flashlight, words fragmented when he asked, "So, you actually can get me out of here if I get stuck, right?"

"What would you do if I said no?" Marie-Ange said, laughing. "I am fairly sure I can, even if it means having to draw some sort of complicated block and tackle and pulleys setup. It is just that, well, that would take some time and I would have to take your flashlight and you would sit in the dark..." She had her own flashlight, but she'd probably need more than one. "And perhaps they left ghosts in the priest hole. Ghosts... of priests, who will try to give you absolution of your sins which would mean you would have to tell them your sins."

"That," Wade said, setting the glass gently aside, "Would be a really, really long list. I'll put my trust in your abilities to get me out, just in case, and leave you one of my spare flashlights. Cause, y'know. In horror movies, the people only ever carry one and it dies and then the monsters get them. Poor planning, if you ask me." Pulling said spare flashlight from his pocket, Wade laid it on the floor near the opening and then shifted over so he could put his foot on the first rung of the ladder. He tested his weight on it to make sure it wouldn't crumble beneath him, and then started down.

Marie-Ange listened for a moment, and then sat down on the ground, legs crossed, with the sketchpad on one knee and the flashlight balanced on the other. It wasn't so much that she assumed he'd get stuck, it was that an entire block and tackle would take quite some time to draw. "If the monsters arrive, I am fairly sure I can handle them." She said, as Wade's head dropped below the ground. "As long as they are not the monster from Cloverfield. That is too big for me to handle alone. You will have to come back if that monster arrives."

"Duly noted," Wade said, looking down so the flashlight's beam would illuminate the ground as it approached. His shoulders brushed the sides of the narrow hole and he muttered, "Damn Elizabethan Catholic priests - skinny little bastards."

"No, I think you had to know your parentage to be a priest then." Marie-Ange leaned over the edge of the hole and peered down. "Maybe that was for the Church of England. I am not quite sure. I moved to America before I had to take a Church History course." She sat back again and continued to sketch.

Removing the flashlight from his mouth for a moment, Wade looked up even though he couldn't see Marie-Ange at all. "Didn't they take in orphans and stuff?" Putting the flashlight back in his mouth, the mercenary attempted to wiggle around so he could bend the right way to go into the rest of the priest hole. According to the diagrams upstairs that he'd looked at pictures of online, this was the narrowest part - it got wider once you got to the bottom and crawled for a bit.

"Probably? Churches do that often, but I am not sure the orphans could be priests." Marie-Ange scooted to the edge and lay down on her stomach, peering down the hole at Wade. "I know that the rumor about the female Pope is an urban legend according to historians. Although I suppose they could be lying. Most of them do not think magic exists, and Amanda disproves that belief every day."

"And they'd probably want to burn her if they ever found that out," Wade muttered, still trying to turn around. "Most of us they'd want to burn. Aren't we all the spawn of unholy unions between demons and humans? We'd have to be, to get the way we are. Obviously. Or maybe that's not Catholics, maybe that's just that stupid Westboro Baptist thing. God, I want to punch one of them again. Or firebomb them." Stopping his wiggling around, Wade considered his position and frowned. This wasn't really going the way he'd planned. It was entirely possible that the theory that people were larger now than they had been in Elizabethan times was, in fact, true. "Huh."

"That is not the Catholics. They are..." Marie-Ange started to answer. "Why are you saying 'huh'?" She leaned forward, but couldn't really see much of Wade. "Is that a good huh, or a bad huh, and if it is a good huh, is it because you have found something interesting? If it is a bad huh, is it because you have found something dangerous and interesting?"

"It's an in-between 'huh,'" Wade managed, shifting around just the slightest bit. He'd gotten his shoulders wedged in a place broad shoulders apparently weren't mean to be. "I found some cool writing carved into the stone down here, which is good. But I think I'm actually stuck, which is bad. Nothing is dangerous, but the writing's interesting."

Marie-Ange sighed, in a sort of mock-irritation and started down the ladder. If he'd been stuck down where she could see him, that would be one thing. But he was past the little bend. At least she was more slender than he was, she would not get stuck. "If you are a wolf demon from another dimension riding in Wade's skin and pop out and eat me, I am going to come back and haunt you."

"So much sexual innuendo, so little time," Wade said, grinning despite the flashlight he still held in his mouth. "But hey, if you're coming down, you can see the writing, too. It's pretty nifty."

It only took her a short while to climb down the ladder and make her way to Wade, and Marie-Ange had brought her bag, and the flashlights, and her sketchpad and pencil. "You, are stuck." The flashlight was tucked into her shirt, between her breasts, and there was another in her hand. "This is what you get for climbing into dark tight holes, you know." If he was going to make innuendo, she could too.

"But I like tight holes," Wade said, leaning his head back a bit so he could grin at her. He tried to keep his own flashlight angled away from Marie-Ange's face so he wouldn't blind her, only then he caught sight of where one of her flashlights was resting and he said, "That's just not fair. I'm not going to be any use to you if you do things like put flashlights in suggestive places. It is far too distracting. I will probably be stuck down here forever."

"I am going to need my hands." Marie-Ange said, setting one flashlight down on the ground carefully. "You are just lucky that I am resourceful." She sketched something on the pad, and then a little ugly creature with dreadlocks and greyish skin and pointy giant ears and moving in an entirely unreal jittery fashion popped into existence at her feet. It climbed up the wall, and then over to Wade's shoulder, and sat down.

"Okay, I know you just drew that and stuff, but I am like three seconds from trying to stab its little dreadlocked head." Wade's voice was very, very serious and his eyes were on the little creature that was sitting on his shoulder.

The imp thing looked at Wade, shrugged in the same way that Marie-Ange did, and then plopped back out of existence, leaving a sort of slime on the wall, and on Wade.

Marie-Ange's lips were tight and she was very clearly trying not to laugh. "I probably should have warned you. Those show up a lot, I tend to doodle them when I am bored. Sometimes they have a mind of their own." It wasn't so much that they got away from her control, more like they just did things without her actively thinking about it. "Can you move yet, or should I make and destroy a few more?"

Wade attempted to twist around a little and only sort of managed to shift. "Might need to pop another one or two... wow, I'm going to be covered in goo."

The second imp sported a pair of earrings in one ear, and this time, the imp was less jittery, in the short time she'd watched Wade try to wiggle out, Marie-Ange cleaned up the drawing a bit. Like the first, it climbed up the wall and sat itself on Wade's shoulder, kicking it's oversized feet a bit before it made a face, puffed out it's cheeks and imploded into another glob of slime. "Yes, but on the other hand you will not die down here?"

"That's very true," Wade said, blinking a little to try to get a glob of goo out of his eye. "I like not dying in dark holes. Not dying is definitely pretty high up on my list of really awesome things to not do in dark holes. Also - eating candy in dark holes and shooting at things that I can't actually see in dark holes. One more goo-guy ought to do it. Maybe."

"You... do not like eating candy in dark holes?" Marie-Ange asked, as a third imp climbed up Wade's leg and scurried under his arm. "I understand the shooting things, and I understand the not wanting to die, but why candy?" The imp looked up at Wade, blinking dark grey on light grey eyes, and twitched it's oversized ears a few times and then also turned into the same ectoplasmic slime the other two had turned into.

Twisting once more, Wade managed to shift himself through the narrow section of the priest hole and through to the horizontal bit beyond. "Because if you're eating candy in the dark, how do you know you're not going to pick up a gross piece? Or one that has a bug in it? I don't mind eating bugs, as long as I go into a situation intending to eat them, but it's like biting into an apple and finding a worm. Also, you should come through to over here - it's pretty awesome."

Marie-Ange laughed. Stuck in a dark hole, covered in image goo and he kept going. Wade was insane, but always entertaining. She wiggled her way through the tight area, not getting stuck like certain broad-shouldered mercenaries did, but getting a good amount of the goo along one shoulder of her shirt. "Are you lucky I know this comes out in the wash..." she said, plucking at the sleeve. "What is so interes... ooh. That is what is so interesting." She pointed at the writing and almost immediately pulled the sketchpad back out to draw what she could make out.

"Yeah, see," Wade said, grinning. "This is more interesting than some of the stuff I've seen carved into, like. The walls of dungeons from the Middle Ages. That's mostly just dates and it's kind of creepy, really, knowing all those people probably died right after they finished scratching the numbers into the wall or whatever. This is like... psalms and stuff, I think. Maybe. And dates, too." He guessed it was probably inspirational stuff meant to make the priests who were trapped in the small, dark hole feel better about their situation or to give them hope that they'd get out of it alive. "Cool."

"I wish I had a camera." Marie-Ange said distractedly. "I am never going to get all of this drawn in time and Wanda is going to scream when I tell her." Wanda was as interested in history as Marie-Ange, for totally different reasons. "It is psalms, and several different ones. See, the handwriting changes, there was more than one person here, or different people at different times. My latin is a bit rusty, I leave that to Amanda most of the time, or Doug, because his any language is never rusty."

Wade dug around in one of the pockets on the inside of his jacket until he found one of his spare phones. Pulling it out, he checked to see if it had a camera on it and then handed it over. "It's not as good as a real camera, but it should work for most of the stuff you can't get down yourself, so long's the flash is turned on. I don't speak any Latin - I just noticed the numbers." He grinned and shrugged, looking back at the wall before them. Wade had to squish his shoulders up around his ears to turn around, but when he did, he checked the wall behind them, too, and said, "There's more over here. I wonder if people documented all this stuff before - I'll bet they did. Or maybe they didn't care so much."

"Maybe they did, but the people who document these things sometimes do not think of or know all the real history." Marie-Ange said, carefully snapping photos. "Which, I suppose if you had not heard already maybe a bit of a shock, magic is real, my roommate is a witch and sometimes there are monsters." She was pretty sure Wade knew already, it was just that she never got to give this speech. "Latin is useless unless you are a history major or want to insult people in a language only old white men know."

Waiting patiently was a skill that Wade had developed over the years, so while Marie-Ange took pictures and talked about magic and history, he nodded along and tried to use his flashlight to better illuminate some of the things she was aiming for. He made all the right noises and then paused, making sure she was finished before plucking the camera phone out of her hand and sticking it back in his pocket. Grinning, he said, "Hey, I'm an old white man." His eyes crinkled at the corners as he said it, though, and he shifted until he could lean in enough to rub his nose against Marie-Ange's cheek. He still had cartoon goo on the end there, which meant she now had some on her face, too. It served her right.

Marie-Ange had meant to say "You are not that old. I mean very old, like, ah, Maximilien de Robespierre, or one of your presidents, one of the dead ones." She knew she should not have slept through that course in US History. She only ever remembered the famous dead ones, like Washington or Nixon. Except that she only got to "Maximil..." before she was confronted with a slightly sticky very affectionate Wade and the rest was sort of garbled. "Wade! Your nose is cold!"

Wade laughed, obviously delighted by her reaction. The sound bounced strangely in the confined space, though, not quite echoing but not quite stifled, either. "Then maybe we should get somewhere else so we can warm it up. Noses don't like being cold."

"That is an excellent and very wise idea." Marie-Ange said, wiping the goo off her cheek with the sleeve of her sweater. "Sticky! If I have to explode any more imps on you to get you back out of that tight passage, it is your own fault!"

"I'll take that blame," Wade said, still grinning. He reached over, hooking two fingers through one of Marie-Ange's belt loop so he could tug her in and give her a proper kiss. "Anyway, now we can say we've been in a priest's hole."

"Yes, you know that still sounds dirty?"