Remy & Wade | Tuesday Afternoon (backdated)

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Wade stops by Remy's office and asks a question.


Wade had mulled over Amanda's suggestion for a couple weeks, thinking about how it would change things for him while he ran through what had become his routine. He helped Meggan with her kickboxing, he helped Artie with physical training, he worked with Kyle to make sure Matt's self-defense was up to par, he ate his silly, themed lunches with Molly because they made her happy, he spent time with Marie-Ange and joked with Doug.

He wasn't bored.

He just needed more.

But more of what? Wade knew he didn't really want to go back to the mercenary life. It was good money and he certainly had enough of a reputation to be able to step back in whenever he wanted, but it didn't offer him any sense of accomplishment. He never felt, at the end of the day, that he'd done something worthwhile.

And the people at Snow Valley... they protected people. From what he understood, they struck preemptively to keep threats from manifesting in full. It was sneakier work than he was used to. But it wasn't a skill set he completely lacked. He'd just never bothered the flesh it out.

Did he want to do that whole cloak and dagger thing?

This was a better opportunity than anything else he'd been presented with, than anything he'd thought he'd be able to do. And helping Maddie out - he'd liked that. He'd even liked being able to bring in that crazy wannabe Russian lady with the bionic arm. So he figured, if he was going to do something, it might as well be something that needed doing and made him feel like he'd accomplished something at the end of the day.

Frowning, Wade knocked on LeBeau's office door.

"Come in." the Cajun barked, not looking up from his files. LeBeau's desk was, as usual, covered in papers, hand written notes in his angular printing, photos, news clipping, web page printouts and the three monitors constantly scrolling information. The ironic thing was that it was the filtered feed; information that Marie-Ange, Doug and North had already culled out the dross, and it was still an unending stream of details. He looked up momentarily and then back down. "No, Wade. Remy not sure when Marie-Ange is goin' be back from Capetown. Supposed to be a day or two, but if de contact has rabbited, she'll be chasing him across de Transvaal before getting back on de plane."

Sitting down in the chair opposite LeBeau's desk, Wade braced his elbows on his knees and nodded. "Thanks. I appreciate the update. But I wasn't here to ask about Marie-Ange. You're obviously busy and I don't want to take up more of your time than's absolutely necessary. I'm here because I'd like a job."

Remy paused and looked up from his work. After a long moment with his red-on-black gaze, he finally shook his head. "Non."

Wade considered that answer, then asked, "Why?"

"Because you an idiot, Wade. And Remy don have time for dat." The gaze was back, unflinching. "If you bored, talk to de Professor or Nate. Sure dat dere's something dat Xavier or ELPIS needs dat can keep you busy for awhile."

"Can you define 'idiot' for me here in context?" Wade asked, since he was fairly certain LeBeau wasn't talking about his intelligence, but it was always good to get clarification.

"You loud, desperate to be liked and have de judgment and self-control of a drunken squirrel." Remy reached out to pick up his coffee cup. It wasn't that he disliked Wade. He knew the man's reputation as an operator. But his personality was jarringly enough off of centre to hint at deeper damage in his psyche. Which Remy could sympathize with, but didn't have time or interest to take responsibility for.

"I'll give you loud," Wade admitted. "And yeah, I don't always have the best self-control. But I don't care if people like me and my judgement's usually pretty sound. Not always, but usually." Keeping people from figuring him out was usually the point of being loud, but he could see that it had probably backfired in this instance. Of course, he'd never thought he'd wind up in this position, so it had never been a consideration before.

Remy considered him flatly for a moment and went back to his paperwork. Arguing with Wade came up around the same priority level as trimming his toenails. And the man hadn't shown him anything to make Remy question his current assessment of him.

"The learning curve in your branch of the business - it's steep. I get that. I know I don't know anything about espionage besides 'don't get caught,' but I'm good to have around if things go wrong." Wade sat back in the chair and considered the other man - LeBeau was difficult to read. It was kind of like closing your eyes and spinning around in a circle, then trying to kick something. You could never be sure you were going to hit what you were aiming for or wall. One of them would leave you with broken toes. In LeBeau's case, probably both options would leave him with broken toes, actually.

"Really? And what about when you de reason dat things go wrong? You as good to have around den?" Remy's eyes flicked back up, his flat expression betraying nothing. It was obvious that LeBeau had no interest in making things easy for Wade, but, at the same time, he hadn't expressly thrown him out yet.

"You know what my skill set is and what it's not. I'd hope you wouldn't send me off to do something I'm not trained for," Wade said. "And until I am trained... well. I'd make a really good, difficult to kill distraction. I'm told it's really annoying when you keep shooting someone and they refuse to die. Apparently I'm frustrating like that." He knew covert ops, he knew assassinations, he knew protection details. He also knew LeBeau had two younger people already at the Brownstone getting Spy Training 101 and he wasn't above sitting in on their classes to learn the things he needed to know.

"De point isn't whether or not you can learn, Wade. It's why I should bother teaching you?" Remy finally put down his pen. "You bored at Xaviers? Dat's not my problem. My problem is keeping a global intelligence network functioning, and Remy don exactly see where a gun is much use to me. Especially one dat has a habit of making stupid decisions dat have de potential of leading back to my people."

Wade paused at that, running back over everything he'd done while working with X-Force to take down Rikki Barnes. He couldn't think of anything that would've had negative repercussions for them that he'd made the call on - he'd just done what they asked and subdued the woman. Which meant LeBeau was either alluding to something farther back in Wade's history or he was talking about the Grgic brothers. The latter seemed more likely, since Wade was pretty sure he'd never crossed paths with the Snow Valley folks before coming to the mansion. "How would my decision lead back to your people? If it's the Grgic brothers you're talking about, I covered all my bases from a merc standpoint. So what's the spy thing I missed?"

"You covered your bases, true. Doubt dat unless dey looking for Wade Wilson specifically dat dey'd ever tie it to you. De problem is dat de only people wit' an obvious motive to want de Grgic brothers dead either live in de mansion in Westchester or work for me." Remy leaned back in his chair. His tone was more curious than anything. "Here's de question dat first comes to mind. What was de value or necessity of the deaths of de Grgic Brothers dat justified de potential risks involved?"

"I didn't see any risks," Wade said. "If anybody actually looked into the prison riot, they might find traces it was staged and yeah, the Grgic brothers were the only fatalities, but neither Kurt nor Amanda were in the area at the time and looking at their bank accounts would have confirmed they hadn't paid for a hit and neither had their family."

Remy actually laughed. Earnest naivetity was not something that you often expected from Wade Wilson. "Let me break dis down for you. First off, dere's de operational risks dat you ran setting dis up in de first place. Second, wit' de Grgic Brothers both dead in de same riot, anyone wit' half a brain is going to second guess de 'randomness' of de circumstances. Third, who de hell pays for a hit from a publicly accessible account? Kurt, maybe. But 'manda? Well, if you were SHIELD, one of de first things you going to notice considering 'manda as a suspect is de years of association wit' Nathan Dayspring, a noted former mercenary operative wit' stacks of money and plenty of contacts who could arrange said accident."

Remy paused, outlining the points on one hand. "Dat's de best case scenario when we just dealing wit' law enforcement. Dey have rules. What 'bout HYDRA? Plenty of resources to provide lots of clues for dat compelling and believable story. Or Vazhin, who would love to have a potential INTERPOL bombshell hanging over our heads as leverage for his next mission. So here's dis nice, fat potential opportunity dat you've set up to worry about. So, again, against all dese possible negative repercussions, what was de value of de Grgic Brothers dead dat made it worth it?"

Wade blinked. "Well, when you put it like that, there wasn't any value to killing them at all." He tapped his fingertips against the arm of the chair even though "Stairway to Heaven" wasn't going to do him much good at the moment. "Which explains why they were still alive. Damn." Life was so much easier when he didn't have to deal with international repercussions when he killed people. At least not so far as he, himself, and the people he spent time with on a regular basis were concerned. Get a contract, kill somebody, collect his money, go home. HYDRA, INTERPOL, SHIELD, this Vazhin guy... he didn't really think apologizing and promising not to kill anybody else out of hand was going to work here.

"Dat is why I'm not going to give you a job, Wade. I don't need guns. I need brains. Remy need people dat I can trust who understand what we're doing here and put dere own personal to one side. Which you have spectacularly shown youself to be de opposite." The refusal wasn't cruel. Remy knew Wade's record. He was pretty sure that the man had shot at him a few times during his Gambit days. But he didn't seem to understand what they did here, despite dating Marie-Ange. He was a good, useful, experienced combat operative, but that was last on LeBeau's wish list.

Taking a slow breath, Wade nodded. "I can respect that decision, LeBeau." He didn't like it, but he could understand it - and he knew there was no use dickering over it any longer. Standing up, he offered the older man his hand. "Thanks for taking the time to explain your reasons."

"Wade, Remy want you to think 'bout something." Remy said, finally setting down his pen. "Why? You told me dat you can be useful and dat you want something more. Everyone else here has put dere personal feelings aside, and isn't here because what it means for dem. Dey've done it because it needs to be done, and dey are de ones dat can do it. It's not redemption and it's not purpose; it's sacrifice. You ask Marie-Ange how much she likes de person we've made her into. And den ask her if she'd do it different. Once you understand de answer she gives you, come and talk to me."

"I'll do that," Wade said, hand still extended for LeBeau to shake. "And again, thanks for your time."