Artie, Sam, & Wade | Very Early Monday Morning (backdated)

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Artie gets picked up for loitering and trespassing in the city and calls Wade to go get him, only Wade's at the mansion and Sam's truck's blocking the garage doors, so Sam gets to enjoy Wade's driving when he decides to accompany Wade.


Wade's eyes snapped open when he phone started vibrating on the bedside table, its lights flashing, and then reached for it. Sometime after midnight was not exactly his usual time for getting phone calls - at least not when he was actually sleeping next to Marie-Ange. Sliding out of bed, he headed into the living room before he answered the call, since he didn't want to wake her now that she'd managed to get to sleep. "Hello?" His voice was rough from sleep and not particularly friendly, since he didn't recognize the number on the caller ID.

Artie had run through the list of numbers he actually knew when they said he could make a call, as they weren't planning on giving him his phone back just yet, though they'd let him keep his speech synthesiser. The Mansion's reception desk wasn't likely to be manned this time of night. If it was routed through to the X-Men, he'd probably get Laurie or Yvette and, hell no. He'd seen Amelia Voight's number on a sticky note last time he was in the medlab. Hell, no, again. Layla was going to be useless and that left Wade, since he'd seen that number scrawled on a couple of pieces of paper in Marie-Ange's office or Doug and ... hell, Doug would probably leave him here for a day or two, as a lesson.

He typed a few sentences into the synthesiser (fucking night shift couldn't find the TTY phone. Asshats) and hit play. "Hi Wade this is Artie. I was caught trespassing and am in the 19th precinct police station. They will not let me go unless an adult comes to collect me. Help!"

He'd been about to hang up when he heard the distinctive, electronic voice of Artie's synthesizer. "Shit," Wade muttered, scrubbing his hand over his head. "We're at the mansion, so it'll take about an hour, but sit tight, kid. And make sure there's a cop on duty monitoring the holding cell once they put you back in there." He was already pulling a shirt on over his head, not really caring that he'd grabbed it from the back of the couch. Lowering his voice a bit more, he muttered, "And what'd I tell you about getting caught, Jesus."

"OK", Artie typed and looked over at the duty cop. "My uncle is coming to get me and a teacher from my school," he typed and then, pointing the synthesizer back at the phone, added, "See you soon Uncle Wade."

Wade snorted and hit the 'end' button, then crept back into his room so he could grab a pair of pants, some socks, and his boots. He took his keys off the counter in the kitchen on his way out and hooked a finger through the collar of his coat. He paused in the hallway, though, as he realized that, when he'd come in, Sam's truck had been parked in front of the mansion's garage doors. "Damn," Wade muttered, turning on his heel and heading for Sam's suite. He dialed the other man's number, though, before knocking.

Sam was actually still awake, although he was in his bed and reading. His phone was on vibrate and he picked it up once it started whirring and shaking on his nightstand. Putting down his book, careful to mark his place with a bookmark first, he hit the 'talk' button and put it up to his ear.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Sam - it's Wade. I need your truck."

"Wait, what?" Sam sat up, moving the book to one side and swinging his legs outside of the bed. "Hold on, I'm getting up. Is everything ok?" He glanced at the clock to see what time it was.

"One of the kids got himself stuck in a holding cell in the city and I need to pick him up, but your truck's kind of in front of the garage, so by default, I need your truck," Wade said, leaning back against the wall near Sam's room as he waited for Sam to appear at the door. "It's faster that way. I'll pay you back for the gas."

"Dammit, seriously? Who was it?" Not that it mattered since they'd have to go fish them out of custody regardless. He was already getting dressed, cradling the phone between his ear and his shoulder as he fastened his jeans and grabbed a sweater. "I'll be right out, I might as well come with you, and don't worry about the gas."

"Artie," Wade answered, pushing off the wall to pull his jacket on. "I'm supposed to be his uncle." He snorted again, then shook his head. "As long as you drive fast enough to get him there before some asshole in holding does something stupid, we're good."

Sam emerged from his suite, ready to go and holding the keys to his truck in his hand. Seeing Wade he flipped the keys over to the other man, then hung up the phone since they were face to face now. "You might as well drive, I had a glass of wine after supper. Not much to drink but, well, better safe than sorry." Especially since they were going to the police station after all. "He'll be alright I'm sure, but you're right, we shouldn't dilly dally."

Wade clicked his phone off after catching the keys and headed down the hall. "Sweet." He planned on driving faster than was strictly allowed. Which meant he probably would be topping up Sam's tank for him, but he'd deal with that later. "To the Mud Slut, Cannonboy!"

Once they got to the police station, Sam let go of the white knuckled grip he had on the dashboard. "Well, we got here pretty fast." If his truck had a flux capacitor they definitely would've been able to time travel, even. "We, uh, we don't have to be in as much of a hurry to get back though, I don't think." Not that he lacked faith in Wade's ability to drive, because the man was clearly a pro, but he was normally only used to that kind of speed when he was soaring through the skies.

"Nah," Wade said, cutting the ignition and sliding out of the truck. "But man, that's what the 'oh shit' bar's for." He grinned even as he tucked the keys into his pocket and headed up the precinct steps. "We'll drive back all nice and sedate Miss Daisy."

Sam got out as well, shutting the door behind him and following Wade up the steps. "I'd be much obliged." He chuckled, then opened the doors to the precinct, holding one of them open for Wade to enter before him.

The holding cell sucked. Artie really wished he was a little less runty...and visibly mutanty. He'd kept his back to the wall, made damn sure that his mouth was shut and refused to rise to the bait from either the pair of terrified college kids or, once they brought them in, the two gang members, doing his best to project an air of calm. He was relieved when a policeman came and fetched him and explained something about a desk ticket. And then, you know, there was Wade. And Sam. He waved gamely, wishing his speech synthesizer wasn't currently off visiting his phone, keys, shoe laces and belt elsewhere.

Wade looked Artie over when the officer brought him out, his license already on the counter for proof that he was who he was saying he was - which was really kind of funny, if you stopped to think about it. Which he wasn't going to do at the moment. Quirking an eyebrow, he turned back to the officer at the desk and made sure that everything was in order while Artie cooled his heels.

While Wade dealt with the paperwork situation, Sam went over towards the younger mutant once one of the officers had brought him out from the holding cells. They had taken whatever he'd had on his person when they got him so Sam knew that Artie wouldn't be able to talk, but he still wanted to make sure that he was ok. "You ok, Artie?" He looked like he was alright, if a little scared, but then again he'd just spent some time in jail.

Artie could have used his powers but he was smart enough to think that the consequences of displaying them here would be ...bad. Very bad. So he nodded and mimed writing. An officer gave him a piece of paper and a pencil. "I'm fine. Thanks for coming to get me."

Sam looked down at what he'd written after the officer gave Artie the paper and then nodded. "Of course. We'll get you home now as soon as Wade finishes with the paperwork." They'd talk about what happened once they were back, there was no sense getting into that at the moment, especially when Artie couldn't talk about whatever had happened or use his powers. "I'm just glad you're ok." Late night calls from the police never really instilled a warm, fuzzy feeling that everything was alright, after all.

After making sure he understood what the situation was and signing what felt like sixty different forms, Wade thanked the officer and headed over to where Artie and Sam were standing. "Right, so - no criminal charges, which is awesome, but next time they might not be as nice." That was lucky, really, because criminal charges meant possible actual jail time and he didn't think anybody wanted to deal with that. It also meant he didn't have to shell out a bunch of bail money.

"So I don't owe you money?" Artie asked, scrawling the question onto a piece of paper before signing for his things and stuffing all but the synthesizer into his backpack as they left and typing into that as they climbed into the car. "That's good. I thought about trying to use a fake ID, so you guys wouldn't get into trouble - I mean, that's what Doug would do, right? But if they checked it on a computer, I can't control what they'd see and that would have ended bad, right?"

"Right," Wade said, snorting softly as they reached Sam's truck. "We'd like to avoid tangling with the cops as much as possible. Not least of all because they tend to act like assholes about the whole 'super powers' thing." He climbed up into the driver's seat, figuring what Sam'd said earlier about that glass of wine probably still held true, and took a moment while Sam walked around to the passenger's side and Artie got into the backseat to give the younger mutant a look. "And you don't owe me any money, no, but I'm gonna make you run your pants off for getting caught and waking me up in the middle of the night."

"I'm sorry I woke you up. I couldn't remember most people's numbers and I saw yours on Marie Ange's desk one day during powers training, with some other papers." He figured turning into Wade's slave for a few weeks was fair enough. It wasn't like Wade would do anything really bad to him.

"The important part of that sentence," Wade muttered, catching sight of Sam in the side-view, "was 'getting caught.' You can call if you need a pickup whenever you need it, okay? Just try not to make it be from the police station next time."

"Exactly, while we're always going to be here for you, we'd really rather be in bed, heh. And would rather have you be home too, kid." He buckled up his seat belt as he spoke, then looked over at Wade before they started to move and glanced over at Artie in the back seat again. "Uh, and you should probably buckle up and hold onto something."