Artie & Wade | Saturday Afternoon (backdated)

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Wade sneaks up on Artie by accident and winds up being surprised, himself, at the way Artie reacts. Interesting conversations follow.


Artie had taken his math homework (stupid summer school) into the rec room and spread out across one of the tables in there. Sure, he'd sort of stopped going to his other school (and okay, yes, they'd eventually call to find out about the progress of his glandular fever and the complications caused by his mutation) but still. Stupid school. It wasn't like he was going to go to college or anything. His laptop was out beside him, playing music that he could, for once, listen to without his headphones on as he punched equations into a graphing calculator.

Wade walked into the common room, the third season of The Golden Girls tucked under his arm, and tipped his head to the side when he saw Artie slaving over a calculator, of all things. Moving toward the kid, the mercenary leaned over his shoulder to see what he was working on. "I thought you were finished with school or something."

If he'd been able to scream, he would have. As it was, Artie rolled off the chair to one side and, in a move he'd learned while in the tunnels visiting Annalee, he threw a globe of pure blackness two feet thick around Wade's face and ran. Or tried to, at any rate as his foot tangled in the strap of his backpack, falling flat on his face and losing his grip on the illusion no more than two seconds after he'd started it.

As soon as the kid had started moving, Wade's years of training and his hypersensitive paranoia kicked in. The blackness took him by surprise, but he'd already ducked into a crouch and half-rolled to the left, his box of DVDs hitting the floor. The blackness disappeared and it didn't seem to have had any effect on his ability to breathe, which left Wade holding two knives, one in either hand, with one knee braced against the floor as he waited for some kind of attack. An attack that... didn't actually come. "Uh... kid?"

It was Wade. Wade didn't hurt people. Pulled knives out but probably didn't hurt people. Artie sat up, rubbing his chin and breathing deeply. "You snuck up on me?" he offered, projecting the words into mid air and took a moment to think about how to best explain. "I've been a wee bit stressed, lately. Summer school, you know?" and he was so carefully not mentioning that he was dreaming about the day that the Morlocks died and Stryker every time he closed his eyes, till it felt like the only safe place he'd ever known was back in the Tunnels with Annalee. "Sorry about that."

"You made me drop Bea," Wade said, squinting at Artie a little even as he flicked his throwing knife back into the sheath on his wrist. He was a little slower to put Selma back in the sheath on his belt, but he decided he couldn't really fault somebody else for demonstrating a level of paranoia he, himself, was more than familiar with. "Useful trick, I guess. I wouldn't qualify asking a question as sneaking, but I guess everybody's got opinions on that sort of thing..."

"I was concentrating! Who the crap is bee?" Artie asked, still rattly and trying to take deep slow breaths. "I guess it was kind of dangerous, what I just did, though? You could have shot me or something, if you were really startled and I didn't run fast enough. I don't know."

"Bea Arthur," Wade said, narrowing his eyes just a little. There was something fishy going on here. "Only the greatest actress of all time. Also, you should take a break from studying if concentrating that hard makes you jumpy." Then he held up his hands so the kid could see when he wiggled his fingers. "And I don't carry my gun with me around here. I'm not gonna fire off a random shot in a school. That'd be irresponsible."

"Bee Arthur, then. Still not helpful." Artie shrugged and finally stood up. "You might not," and he did the italics in the text as he displayed it, "But someone like Stryker's people or the ones the X-Men deal with - what if I was to startle them so that they start shooting where I am, even though they can't see me? I mean, everyone knows exactly where stuff is, even when they can't see it. Anyway, please tell me about this bee Arthur." Not that he was trying to change the subject or anything.

Wade reached down and picked up his the boxed DVDs he'd dropped, then pointed to Bea Arthur. "That's her. Very talented." He knew the name Stryker. He knew the guy was dead, at least. He'd also heard more than a few rumors from many different sources about the sorts of things the man had done when he'd been alive. The mercenary wound up shrugging, opening the box in his hands to make sure the DVDs were alright. "Look, kid - it's a valid defensive maneuver. Don't discount it just because you tripped on a strap or something. You just need to refine your technique and, ultimately, be more aware of your surroundings."

So... the nice man with the knives had a fetish for old ladies. Oookay. Artie decided that discretion was a sensible plan and didn't comment on it at all, beyond throwing up an image of Zombie Bea Arthur but, hey, it was behind Wade so... "What do you mean pay more attn?" he asked, frowning with concentration as he kept the two sets of images going. "I forgot where my bag is, is all."

"You can't afford to forget stuff like that if you're actually in a combat situation. Or a situation that might turn into a combat situation. Always be ready to run, always be prepared. I know this isn't exactly the sort of place that screams 'must be prepared to battle for my life,' but seriously. From what I've heard, it's not all rainbows and puppies, either. So all I'm saying is, don't forget where you left your bag next time." Wade shrugged. "I'm assuming you took all the basic self defense classes and stuff that they teach here, right?"

"yeah. we all did." Minuture karate-Artie, all of three inches tall, aimed a flying side kick at the back of Wade's head. "but that was more... how to get away if someone grabbed you and how to knee them in the nads. not hey, run for your life now. since, you know, they kind of like to pretend that we're safe here."

"Uh huh," Wade said, snorting a little. He'd heard about the attack on the school. He knew it was generally safe but there were always exceptions to the rules. "You do any hand-to-hand stuff? Throws and blocks? Form and technique?"

Artie shrugged. "i dunno. a bit of punching, a couple kicks and throws, a lot of break holds and vanessa taught us how to be really good at kicking people in the balls. but not actual FIGHTING because you know. we're students not baby mercenaries in trainining." Most of what they were taught wasn't actual fighting and was just how take care of yourself if things went horribly, horribly wrong.

Wade nodded. That made sense for a school environment. Generally, the kids here seemed to be better prepared for combat situations than he would've thought, which spoke well for their teachers. Of course, if Vanessa had been one of the teachers, he really wasn't surprised that they could handle themselves well enough to hopefully get away from whoever might be causing them trouble. "How would you feel about some extra curricular training? I warn you now, it'll involve a lot of running."

Artie nodded, trying not to look as eager as he felt. "That would be pretty awesome. I ain't afraid of no running. Hey, maybe you could teach me to shoot, too?" Shooting had always seemed like something that, on TV at least, was really useful to know and it never hurt to ask.

Snorting, Wade shook his head. "One thing at a time, slick. Shooting's kind of pretty far up on the scale of things you'll have to prove you're capable of doing responsibly and even then I'm pretty sure I'd have to get about a million and a half forms signed by sixteen different people to allow it. So let's get started on the physical stuff. Maybe I'll set you to swimming laps, too. Endurance is important."

"Fair enough. Still, looks like fun on TV..." Artie replied before adding, "swimming, huh? i'm cool with that. & then u tell me what to do later?"

Wade wrinkled his nose. "They always do it wrong on television." Then he grinned. "But yeah, and then I'll tell you what to do later."