Marie-Ange & Wade | Early Wednesday Morning & Continued Later

[x-deadpool.livejournal.com]

Wade wakes up to find Marie-Ange sleep-taroting. The cards seem oddly ominous to him, so he asks about them later that morning and then, unexpectedly, asks a few other questions that Marie-Ange wasn't expecting concerning X-Force.


Wade was an exceedingly light sleeper, a fact that came in quite handy during a variety of different scenarios. He thought about that as his eyes snapped open and his brain kicked into overdrive in an attempt to figure out what'd woken him up. It was dark, light from the street outside coming through the shades and striping the wall to his left. No movement in the hall or the living room, no wind, no drunkards singing in the street. He'd just decided to get up and check the bathroom window purely to assuage his paranoia when Marie-Ange shifted next to him and spoke again.

"No, the Joker is not even part of a reading, that is ridiculous." Marie-Ange's eyes were closed, but she'd somehow gotten a deck of cards, at this point everyone who knew her was just convinced she slept with one, like others might sleep with a gun under a pillow. "Neither is Batman, stop that." The cards were barely in her hands, and fell from her fingers in disordered piles, scattering across the sheets and the pillow that was "Wade's", even if she stole it sometimes in the middle of the night.

Ah, Wade thought, a small smile quirking up one side of his mouth. That'd be it. Sometimes Marie-Ange spoke in her sleep, but this was the first time he'd ever caught her trying to lay out tarot cards while apparently still sleeping. Tipping his head to the side, he snagged one of the cards that'd started to fall down the far side of the pillow - wouldn't do to lose the cards between the mattress and the headboard, would it?

But when Wade reached to grab the cards, he found not just the couple that had fallen, but another few that seemed to have been there before, because In the stripe of light from the streetlamp, it was clear they were duplicates, coming up in distinct order, The Tower, and Death, and Death again, and the Devil, three times from three decks, and from another deck entirely by the size, two, Science and Debauch.

"Huh," Wade said, blinking at all the Death cards. That seemed ominous and he wasn't even into this stuff as much as Marie-Ange was. "Weird," he said, tilting the Devil and the Tower into the light so he could see them a little better. They were definitely going to need to shift the bed around to make sure there weren't any others stuck in odd places.

These cards must've been one of her newer ones, because it was half colored, and hand-drawn in Marie-Ange's personal style. The Devil's face was stark white, with black hair, and the Tower a strange blocky modern building that seemed out of place against the rest of the cards. As Wade looked closer, one of the Death cards was also in this style, though Death was a cloaked woman carrying a sword, not a scythe, and another, the Ace of Wands, though more accurately, it should have been the Ace of Bō, a clearly male hand holding a bō.

Wade quirked another smile at that card since he knew what it was, but he didn't really get why Marie-Ange was drawing her own cards. Not that he knew much of anything about the whole process, of course, and it could've just been something she did on nights when she couldn't sleep. Given how often that happened, it was a distinct possibility. Still, the Devil looked kind of freaky and the Tower could have been a building in any number of cities while the one with the bō just seemed a little out of place.

Reaching toward the bedside table, he laid the cards down and then frowned a little. The Batman and the Joker weren't part of the reading but apparently Death was all over the place in its many varied forms. This whole thing just seemed a little weird and the hair at the nape of Wade's neck stood on end for a moment.

As Wade came back to the bed, Marie-Ange rolled over, tugging the covers around her, and two more cards peeked out from under where she'd lain, from one of her hand-drawn decks, all colored pencil and pastels. The High Priestess, this one with long auburn hair and green robes, and tucked under it, another Death card from the same hand-drawn set.

Having developed something of a fondness for redheads, or one very specific redhead, at least, Wade wasn't exactly thrilled to see one on a card that was getting all up close and personal with yet another version of Death, but he just reached over Marie-Ange and picked up those cards, too. Still, it struck him as sort of odd and more than a bit foreboding. This was her thing, one of her mutations, and the cards were how she worked it. He was beginning to really dislike this little interlude of theirs, if only because it was kind of creeping him out and Wade didn't really do creeped out - much the way he didn't do awkward.

So instead of brooding over the last couple cards he'd found, he slid back into bed behind Marie-Ange and wrapped an arm around her waist. Maybe he'd talk to her in the morning. Maybe she'd tell him it didn't really matter. He doubted it, but he could hope.

***
Several hours and three cups of coffee later, Wade found himself leaning back against the counter in Amanda's kitchen, his Flash boxers showing to good effect as he considered his girlfriend and whether or not she was conscious enough to feel like answering his questions about the tarot cards she'd been sleep-dealing to herself the night before. "Hey, so," he finally said as he picked up a piece of cinnamon toast. "Your precog thing. Is it like. Really bad when six or eight Death cards show up from all kinds of different decks?"

Marie-Ange's mug of tea stayed in front of her face for much longer than it would've normally taken for her to take a drink as she stared at Wade in mild disbelief. "Is this a hypothetical question or a question based on an experience you had that for unknown reasons I do not recall?" She was fairly sure she did not have any amnesia, but that didn't rule out ... most of the explanations she could think up.

"Well, you kept moving around last night and then you started talking about Batman and the Joker and there were all these Death cards mixed into everything. It looked like you'd drawn quite a few of them, actually - I like the dude with the bō. But y'know. It seemed kind of... probably not so awesome that Death was all over the place."

"The cards were in my bed?!" Marie-Ange's hand rattled the mug as she set it down. "The Ace of Bō? I have not even finished drawing that deck." She looked very slightly sheepish, because the personal decks were often full of imagery of people she cared for, and she'd spent more than a few hours casually watching Wade to be able to sketch him properly. "I have to keep re-drawing them, because signifier cards change when people change." Maybe he wouldn't notice that she was avoiding the Death question.

"Yeah, they were all over. I mean, you kept muttering about them and telling them to stop doing things, but they were falling behind the pillows and you were sort of laying on a couple of them. Did you have to redraw Death so much? I mean, I'm not really worried about him, personally, but he's kind of creepy, what with how he kept sidling up to the redheaded chick and everything." Wade kept his posture relaxed, his voice merely curious, but he was watching Marie-Ange because this was sort of her thing.

"Sometimes Death is a woman?" Marie-Ange's voice was almost deliberately pitched to sound light and amused. "I have used a scythe once or twice." She picked at a slightly rough fingernail, and tried not to look anxious. "Death is in every deck, and the aspect it takes on is dependent on the type of tarot deck. Sometimes it is literally death, but sometimes just change." She picked up mug back up and took a sip. "I do kill people, and I know several Assassins. It is only natural that I would see that card very often."

Wade wasn't entirely sure he was buying what she was selling, but it wasn't like he could sit there and say he had any actual basis for not wholeheartedly believing her. It was just sort of a twitchy feeling he got that made him want to shrug a lot and maybe go hit something. Something with a really obnoxious face. "I kill people," he offered, nodding like he was agreeing with her because him being twitchy wasn't really a good reason to prod at Marie-Ange's tarot card thing.

So, in typical Wade fashion, he changed the subject. "I got two questions for you. Question one - you like the person X-Force has made you into?" He was subtle like a wrecking ball and he did not care. It was this or worry about the Death thing.

"What." It took a lot to get Marie-Ange to drop her pretense of being entirely unflappable and just drop a flat 'what'. She did not want to answer that question at all. "I ... oh God, you have spoken to Remy. What on earth made you talk to Remy?" There were only two people who might have sent Wade to her with that question and Pete was still at Muir Island.

Wade shrugged. "Would you do things differently if you were given the chance?" He could guess the answer given her reaction. But he couldn't be positive. This was a conversation he'd been mulling over for months. He hadn't been sure he wanted to have it.

"No, but that is a different question than your first question, and a very complicated question to answer." Marie-Ange said, all seriousness now. "You might be better asking Doug if he likes who he is. He has had a very different experience. It was never a matter of liking for me, it was a matter of doing what was necessary. If I had the chance to, ah, take a do-over, the things I would prevent are not about me, they are about other people."

"So you wouldn't necessarily change anything that brought you to this point - the job," Wade said. "Only the things that have impacted other people in what could be construed as a negative fashion?" He and Doug already had a few too many things that they pointedly weren't being awkward about. Wade wasn't sure he actually wanted to spawn any others.

Marie-Ange finished the tea in one long drink. She needed caffeine for this kind of conversation. "Wade, I am precognitive. The choices I make are influenced by very complex factors." Which was such an unfailingly pretentious way to say "I don't always have a choice." "There are people who have died or left and I would prefer not to have lost them. But I see things differently. Sometimes, a single change can bring a house of cards falling down." She rubbed her fingertips against the mug. "I do not like all of the things I have done, but it is not about liking."

"So what's it about?" The edge of the counter was digging into the small of his back through the fabric of his shirt, but Wade ignored the slight discomfort as he watched Marie-Ange.

"What is it about for you? Why do you take contracts?" It was a cheap trick turning the question around, but Marie-Ange was not entirely sure how to answer Wade's question. It was more about what it was not about than what it was.

"Killing's the only thing I've ever been consistently good at. That and making sure other mercs don't kill people I'm supposed to be protecting. It pays well." Wade shrugged again. "Sometimes what I do could theoretically serve a higher purpose and sometimes it's just cathartic. Sometimes I like to imagine my target wearing someone else's face. Why did you go to New Orleans?"

"Because either I worked with the Guild and killed for money and was trained or Remy's ex-wife would have had control over half of North America and everyone I know would have died." Marie-Ange said, entirely without inflection. "The difference, I think, is that I would have wiped out innocent people to do that. I did kill innocent people to do that. Shirow Ishihara had done nothing wrong except be in the wrong place with the wrong mutant power."

"I killed a priest in Zaire," Wade said, tilting his head to the side just a little. "Good man. Would have done good things. He was just a contract. A name on a piece of paper. And I'm really good at what I do. He never saw it coming. He never had a chance. The money was in the bank and his brains were on the wall. That's the difference. You killed an innocent man to prevent other people from dying. I'm assuming you did other things there to keep them safe as well. I killed an innocent man for money and probably caused the deaths of hundreds of innocent people. I didn't care. I might now, but I didn't then." He paused for a moment, still watching Marie-Ange carefully. "You would do it again, wouldn't you?"

Marie-Ange pinched the bridge of her nose, and let out a long sigh. "Wade, do you understand that I would leave my own friends to die if I had to, and I would pick up and go on the next day? I am not saying I would like it, but liking is not what is important and liking something or not liking it is not going to make it any more or less necessary." She rubbed at her face. "I am sorry, I do not mean to be harsh, but that is as plain as I can manage it."

Wade did quirk a smile at that. "That's not harsh, ladybird. That's just honest." He considered her for a moment, then said, "I asked for a job. LeBeau said no. But he told me to talk to you and then get back to him once I understood your answers to those questions."

The laughing probably was not helping, but Marie-Ange couldn't help but laugh. "And he gave you the 'this job is terrible and not for just any person, and also we do not need people who kill for money' speech, yes?" It was so very typically Remy. It was not incorrect, but it was very Remy. "Why do you want a job with X-Force? You have money, you have a job to go back to, if you wanted."

Wade wasn't entirely sure how to respond, so he took a moment to think it over before he answered her question. "I'm turning 52 this year. I've... done a lot of things over the years. I've done good, I've done bad, I've done stuff nobody knows about, cares about, or remembers. But there's a mansion full of kids that I'm actually pretty fond of. I don't get glimpses of the future but I know how things have gone in the past. I know patterns repeat. Military history is one giant patchwork quilt of war, cool off, peace, unrest, and war again.

"I've gotten to a point where I figure... I should put everything in my head, the experiences I've got, to use so that maybe those kids at the mansion don't have to do the stuff I've done. I don't know much about spying and I've never had to think much farther about the consequences of my actions than avoiding blowback. Cause and effect was always limited to me. My actions. My worries. My ass on the line. What you guys do - it might be shady as hell and sometimes people probably wouldn't even really consider it good, I'm guessing. But there are reasons for everything you do - like you said. You see things differently. There's complexity and layers and things I probably wouldn't even think about." Reaching for his coffee, Wade took a sip even though it was cold now.

"LeBeau says none of you do this for redemption or because it gives you some kind of purpose. It's because it needs doing and you're the people who can do it - that it's sacrifice." He paused again, frowned a little, then shrugged. "Probably none of that made sense. I just have this John Adams quote in my head. Politics and war versus mathematics and philosophy."

"It... it is not that none of that makes sense, but ... you know that sometimes we do very very bad things to people who do not even deserve it, yes?" Marie-Ange asked. "If those children at the mansion stood between you and another generation learning math and philosophy, would you be able to take them on?" Before he could answer, she waved a hand at him. "I am not saying that will happen, and I am saying that is unlikely to happen. It is not all wet work, but when it is, sometimes it is ... it is doing terrible things because we have to."

Wade closed his eyes and considered that for a long moment. He pictured killing Molly because it needed to be done. He couldn't imagine a situation where that would be necessary and the thought of it alone made him regret the coffee he'd had. His stomach churned and he sat his mug of cold, bitter caffeine aside. "I wouldn't want to," he said finally, opening his eyes to look at Marie-Ange again. "But if doing it prevented something else, something far worse, from happening. Then yeah, I think I could. It'd have to be a damn good reason, but again. History is full of moments like that where killing one person would have made a major difference. I was black ops before I went mercenary. We... did that sort of thing."

"That is why Remy asked you how much I liked who I was now." Marie-Ange said quietly. "Because I might do it if all it meant was that the person was between me and a necessary target. My good reason is another person's unnecessary slaughter." She wasn't bloodthirsty, not quite, but sometimes you had to do a terrible thing to prevent the chance of a worse one. "It is not something I would do lightly, mind you."

"Of course not," Wade agreed, nodding. "But you'd do it if you had to." He stayed where he was for a long moment, then reached over and hit the button on the electric kettle so it would reheat the water inside. Grabbing a box of tea bags, he slid them onto the table near Marie-Ange's empty cup and dumped his cold coffee out before reaching for the pot to refill his mug. He didn't say anything until the kettle clicked off, at which point he picked it up and carried it to the table. After putting it within easy reach, he leaned over and pressed a kiss to Marie-Ange's lips before settling back in his own seat.

Marie-Ange stayed quiet for a few more minutes, sipping at her tea once it was ready. "I would do it if it needed to be done." Which was perhaps arguing over a plate of beans but "have to" and "need to" were not quite the same in her book. Having to implied she did not get a choice in the matter. "You have rules that you follow, yes? No innocent women, no children? I am not quite sure I even have those rules."

"Yeah, my rules," Wade said, taking a sip of coffee. "I've got then for a... very particular set of reasons." Rubbing at the back of his neck, he quirked a small smile. "Killing is easy. And sometimes that can be a problem."'

"I do not have them. I think that is somewhat the point perhaps Remy wanted me to make. It is not to say I would enjoy it, but the rules, they are not there." Marie-Ange said, almost too calmly. "No one is off-limits." She raised an eyebrow, and jerked her head in the direction of Amanda's room. "Amanda is as close to me as anyone, but if she started to go down some paths, the only way to stop her would be to kill her. Sometimes it is about accounting. Is the person I leave behind or send into a trap worth more or less than end result?"

Wade didn't say anything for a long moment, mulling that over. It was a degree of dissociation that most people tried to avoid, but he could see it. He could understand it. He shook his head. "I see what you mean, ladybird. I see what you mean."

Marie-Ange patted Wade's hand and gave him a mostly-genuine if tired smile. "Not the most pleasant of breakfast conversations, I think, but probably necessary. Which is a very poor metaphor for X-Force, but not inaccurate. Mostly unpleasant and necessary, and a lot of coffee." And sometimes donuts, but that did not fit the metaphor at all.

Turning his hand over, Wade tapped his forefinger against the center of Marie-Ange's palm and gave her another smile. "And yet, not the most unpleasant breakfast conversations I've ever had. I'm pretty sure that particular conversation goes to the Wheeze and involved not just a banana but a set of Asian twins, a Prince Albert, and a ginger tabby cat."

"Was the banana part of breakfast or the conversation?" And dear god, she hoped the cat was not part of the breakfast. "I am also not... uncertain that Manuel did not once have the same conversation with me, minus the Prince. I think he only knew the British princes, though he may have known Monaco's royal family." She held a straight face until Wade opened his mouth to explain and then wrinkled her nose and laughed.

Raising his hand, Wade pointed his finger at Marie-Ange, then shook his head. "You don't wanna know about the banana, ladybird. You just don't wanna know. I promise."