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Nathan 'Cable' Summers dislikes time travel.
Yes, he knows, ironic, given his circumstances, but still. He hates it. It hurts like hell, for one and for another, his already limited telekinesis always ends up going wonky for at least a week afterward. Plus it's a pain trying to keep track of the disparate timelines.
Wade seems to be adapting admirably. The bastard.
"So, what year is this? 1963? 1930? It's not 1957, is it?"
Nate sighs, knowing already he's going to regret asking, "Why? What happened in 1957?"
"I don't know. I just always hated that year. Fuck 1957."
Nate counts to ten and reminds himself that this is partly his fault, that Wade wouldn't be riding shotgun to the bodyslides or the time-slides if he hadn't inadvertently spliced their DNA. That, all things considered, Wade has not been a... completely unpleasant traveling companion.
"Nate! Look!" Wade points to a television on display in a local shop window. It's playing a local advert for cigarettes with some unfortunate implications about their health value. "Cigarette ads! It's so quaintly carcinogenic!"
I will not cut off his head and bury it in concrete. I will not cut off his head and bury it in concrete.
Nate double-checks a local newsstand for the date - September 1st, 1962. Not when he wants to be and it's going to take a couple minutes to re-program their coordinates to the proper time and place. Which is going to be made more difficult if Wade keeps going up to every man on the street and asking, "On a scale of one to ten Don Drapers, one Don being 'only the hot ones' ten Dons being 'I wouldn't have enough time before I died of old age,' exactly how many women would you bang from your office?"
Nate yanks him back by the arm. "Stop scaring the locals."
"See, it was a trick question. The correct answer was 'Betty, Joan and Peggy three-way.' "
"If I get you a beer while I work on getting us out of here, will that shut you up for five minutes?"
Wade shrugs. "It's certainly worth a try."
Meaning 'not likely,' but any port in a storm.
The restaurant on the corner is luckily past its lunch rush and Nate only has to telepathically nudge a limited number of people to accept the crazy man in the black and red mask and his 6'8" companion as being perfectly ordinary customers. He gets two beers from the bar and settles into the booth across from Wade. Wade happily starts slurping his drink and Nate removes his wrist computer, prying open the casing with a multi-tool. He gets, shockingly, a few blessed minutes of silence to work, although he does have to keep slapping Wade's hands away from the databoard.
The door behind him opens and the touch of two additional minds brush against his consciousness.
"Stop looking so put out, Erik," a man's voice, with traces of an English accent and barely suppressed laughter, drifts over to them. "I'm sure the young lady didn't mean for the water to spontaneously dump itself on you."
"My coat's ruined," a second man answers. Definitely from Germany, though Nate can't be certain from where. "The leather is - Charles? Is everything alright?"
"Yes, it's just - something in this room..."
Both Nate and Wade go very, very still.
"..Charles?"
"No, it's alright," the other man says, sounding cheerful. "May have gotten a touch of..." Whatever it is, he doesn't say. "I'll figure it out after we eat."
"Are you sure?" There's no hiding the dubiousness in the tone.
"Everything's always easier after a good meal," the first man insists and as the pair walks by their booth, Nate gets a look at them out of the corner of his eye. The two continue to chat as he and Wade stare at each other, pretending quite hard that they are merely pieces of furniture and not time travelers stuck in 1962.
Wade leans over as soon as the two men are seated. "Oh my god."
"Wade-"
"Was that-" He cranes his neck around, openly gawking and Nate has to yank him back. "It is! It totally is!"
"Wade. Shut. Up."
"Oh, come on! Don't tell me you're not even the littlest bit curious."
"I'm not." Which, to be fair, is a total lie. Because, well, that is Charles Xavier sitting two tables over and looking far younger that Nate has ever seen him, younger even than their first brief meeting. He has a full head of hair, a round face determined to hang onto its baby fat a while longer yet and an infectious smile he is using in full force to charm the waitress. The wheelchair is noticeably absent.
And if the other man - lean and dark-haired, with a shark's smile - is supposed to be Erik Lensherr, then young Charles's dining companion is the future Magneto.
Running into them could be awkward, to say the least. Or cause an implosive temporal paradox. Which would be a touch worse.
"Dude! This is awesome!"
Cable glares. "It's not. We should go."
"Are you kidding?" Wade is practically wiggling with glee. "No way am I passing up the opportunity to to watch their unresolved sexual tension in real time."
"...what?"
"I ship Cherik," Wade tells him, as if this explains everything. "I've even got a t-shirt that says so."
"I have no idea what that means."
"Charles. Erik. Cherik." Wade waves his hand. "It's a fandom thing. I'm pretty sure it started with Buffy, so really, that makes it Joss Whedon's fault."
Nate feels as if Wade is speaking a language only tangentially related to English. "What?" he says again.
"Oh, come on. You can't tell me you don't see it."
"See what?"
"The private jokes, the constant violation of personal space, the chess games as metaphor for sublimating homoerotic desires." Wade points as the two men continue to talk. "See? There. Right there. They are practically eyefucking each other as we speak."
"They aren't - is that even a word?"
"Nate. Nate, Nate, Nate." Wade shakes his head sadly. "For a man who once controlled the entire world wide web, your internet-fu is weak."
Nate really thinks he should have gotten a stronger drink. "Am I actually having this conversation?"
"Do you even need to ask?" The answer being, no, probably not. Wade sits up straighter. "You know, maybe we're here for a reason. Maybe we were meant to accidentally end up in 1962."
Nate has a bad feeling about the direction of this conversation and for once, actually wishes he knew exactly what Deadpool was thinking. "I don't think-"
"Don't you see? Look at those two lonely, emotionally dysfunctional men." He points again at the pair, uncaring that this is starting to draw Charles's attention. "They need each other. They're two halves of the same whole, two sides of the same coin, yin to yang, apples to oranges, magnets to... other magnets." He slams his hand on the table. "We can prevent them from ever getting divorced in the first place!"
"They weren't married," Nate feels the need to point out.
"They broke up on a beach. They split the kids. There were manly tears. It was totally a divorce." Wade stands. "And I, for one, cannot let the fangirls down. I will get those two crazy kids together, I will prevent their beach divorce and the Internet? The Internet will thank me, Nate. I will be its hero."
Nate tries to hold him in place telekinetically, but of course his power chooses now to crap out on him and Wade saunters over to Charles and Erik's table, saying, "Aw, you kids! You're adorable!"
Nate curses in several languages, gathers up the bits and pieces of his computer and follows. As he walks up, Wade is patting Charles on the head and going, "Look! You're just so short and blue-eyed and Scottish!"
"Please stop that," Charles says. "And I'm not Scottish."
"Sure you aren't, Mr. Tumnus," Wade answers and jerks his thumb at Erik. "And he can't possibly be Irish, his accent just gets lost on the way to Dusseldorf sometimes."
While Charles appears merely bemused by the entire situation, Erik has a look on his face that could charitably be described as murderous. And while Wade would survive just about anything short of an atomic bomb, Nate is uninterested in cleaning up the mess. He grabs the mercenary by the arm. "We are going."
"But we were just getting started. We haven't even gotten to the part where I talk them into declaring their undying love for one another."
Erik appears to have mentally moved from 'murder him dead' to 'torture, dismember, scatter the body parts in strategic locations.' Charles, on the other hand, lights up at his approach.
I thought I felt another telepath! How wonderful!
Um, yes. Well, Nate sends back. The younger Charles is certainly... enthusiastic.
Aloud, Charles says, "Erik, this is fantastic. This man is a mutant, too."
Erik's eyes narrow. He does not share Charles's excitement. Nate can't really blame him. "What a coincidence."
"I know, right?" Wade gushes. "Who would have thought two pairs of mutant hetero life mates such as ourselves would run into each other like this?" He pauses. "Well, me and Nate are hetero." Pause. "Well, not always." Pause. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
Charles takes a stab at politeness. "So, you're a mutant as well?"
"Yep," Wade says at the same time Nate answers, "No." Wade glares at him (or would be glaring at him if Nate could see his face) and says, "Yes. Breaking the fourth wall is totally a mutant power." Pause. "Mutant-ish." Pause. "Sort of." Pause. "Not that there's anything wrong with that."
"I see," Charles says, though he very clearly doesn't.
"Listen, I'm sorry about..." Nate sort of gestures, not quite sure what he's apologizing for. Wade? The universe? Everything? He feels like he should be apologizing about something, anyway. "But we were just dropping by and-"
"And talking to you two about about your communication problems," Wade interrupts, plopping down on a chair next to him. Oh god, it looks likes he's making himself comfortable. "Listen, Charlie - can I call you Charlie?"
"I really wish you wouldn't."
"Sorry. Chuck. Buddy. You have got to climb out of your own head at some point. I mean, I know, telepath and everything, but your clueless-ness, while endearing, is going to bite you in the ass. Or spine. Probably your spine."
"Jesus," Nate mutters and buries his head in his hands, wishing this day was over already.
"And Erik, old pal, I know you've spent the last few years auditioning for the role of the unofficial ninth Inglorious Basterd-"
"I have no idea what-"
"Don't worry, you'll get pissy about it in another forty-five years and try to beat Quentin Tarantino to death with an Oscar. Man, that was the best Academy Awards show ever." Wade muses for a moment, than comes back to himself. "Anyway, point is, while your tendency to stab people to death is a skill I both admire and emulate, it's standing in the way of your happiness. And your ability to have sex with this man." Wade grabs Charles and hugs him close. "See? How can you resist those baby blues? I practically want to have sex with him and I actually know what he's going to look like in fifty years, which - ergh." Wade shudders.
Nate is starting to pick up on the bloody fantasies now playing out in Erik's head (how Charles manages to filter him out, Nate has no idea) and is sort of impressed with their creativity. Especially the one featuring Wade's head, a coin and several pieces of cutlery. The silverware surrounding them rattles ominously.
"Aha! Right then? I just mention sex with Chuck and you're already all 'Rawr! Shark Attack!' You are so deeply in love with this man I am actually a little embarrassed on your behalf. Search your feelings, you know it to be true."
Is that a quote from Star Wars? Nate is pretty sure that is a quote from Star Wars.
"Now the two of you go." Wade all but shoves Charles at Erik. "Go now. Find yourselves a hotel room, make all of that subtext text, have little, biologically impossible mutant babies together and ensure a better world, a world where you will never leave each other, nothing will ever hurt and fangirls will dedicate kinkmemes to me and Nate instead!"
And then Wade just... stops. Like he's on pause. Nate glances over at Charles, who appears to be simply massaging his temple (and after Deadpool's little performance, who would blame him?), but Nate recognizes that particular affectation. He looks back at Wade, who's still frozen.
"Uh, Wade?"
Wade looks up at him. "I'm a pretty princess," he announces.
Nate sighs. "Right."
"I like ponies," Wade adds.
Nate looks back at Charles and has to admit, he's a little in awe. Not only because he sometimes forgets how powerful the other man is (and he knows from personal experience, trying to get past Wade's mental slipperiness is no easy task), but because it also seems this younger version isn't nearly as adverse to using his mutation for petty revenge as the elder professor is.
"Not that this isn't amusing," Nate says ("I should like my hair in plaits today, please," Wade murmurs). "But how long is he going to stay that way?"
Charles lowers his arm and looks a little abashed. "Erm, only an hour or two. I'm sorry, that was a bit rude to your friend, wasn't it?"
"He's not my -" Nate doesn't bother to finish, because that isn't really true. Wade may be an annoying pain in the ass, but he's someone who tries to be better than he is and Nate can't help but be alright with that. "It's fine. As long as I don't have to go in there and sort it out."
"Ah, no. It's temporary." Charles perks up a bit. "However, if you'd like to stay and discuss your abilities, we'd love to hear more -"
"Speak for yourself," Erik mutters
"We're on a bit of a - well, you could call it a recruitment drive, a way to talk to other people like ourselves -"
Nate holds up a hand to stop him. "I appreciate the offer, but we actually really do need to go. Come one, Wade, on your feet." He pulls the mercenary up off the chair ("Really," Wade tells him, "how brutish"). He thinks for a moment, then holds out his hand. "Circumstances aside, it was an honor, Professor."
Charles shakes his hand, looking a little dazed. "Thank you."
Nate turns to Erik. "And you..." He hesitates. Magneto's world view had always been too uncomfortably close to Apocalypse's for his liking and he knows exactly what sort of future that leads to. Still, Erik isn't that man yet, so Nate settles on, "Try not to do anything stupid. Well, stupider than usual." Pause. Sigh. "Just - try not to get anyone shot."
Erik gapes.
Nate guides Wade out. "Come on, let's go home."
"Shall we get a puppy? I should very much like a puppy."
"Sure, Wade, we'll get you a puppy."
"Huzzah."
Nate silently makes a note to avoid mucking with time as much as possible as long as Wade is around and as soon as they are out of sight of the restaurant, breathes out a "Bodyslide by two."
Behind him, a pair of dazed mutants try to look like nothing at all is wrong. Erik straightens his fork. Charles picks at the tablecloth. There are two complete minutes of silence.
Finally, Erik looks at the other man. "What the hell just happened?"
"I have no idea."
FIN