#c&dp

"I'm asking you, how did you let that happen?"

"Was 'listening to Michael Winslow ASMR' not a good enough answer for you?"

"Wade, I swear by the Mother."

"Well, the thing is, it wouldn't have happened if I'd had a partner. Maybe someone with telepathy. Someone with telekinesis. That time travels. I think that would have been a useful resource to have in my pocket behind enemy lines." The familiar little muscle on Nate's nose twitched, like it always did when Wade was really, really getting under his skin, and he knew he'd struck a nerve. "What, do you know one, Nate? Can you give me their number? Because the one I know is a big shit brick who always finds more important things to do than answer his goddamn phone, even when—"

"We can decide how much of a bastard I am later. I need to know what happened. When they took you, how, what happened when they did—"

"—even when his 'best friend,' or whatever," Wade threw his hands up in exasperation, careful not to dislodge the blanket Cable's hired emergency personnel had given him. "—needs him." He immediately felt bad about the venom that came through in 'best friend'—it was an old argument, Wade was the one that had said they shouldn't be anything else and that Nate should, in no uncertain terms, go fuck himself, and weren't they past it? Besides, they had an audience: the uniforms that had delivered Wade here still flitted about, giving reports to more smartly dressed people on Nathan's payroll and occasionally wandering back to the safe-house porch to make sure Wade was still moving and on his IV before scurrying away again. "And anyway, it doesn't matter. A.I.M. has flown the coop, I'm alive enough to be very, very cranky, you're here enough to be making me crankier, and what I'd really like to do right now, what I'd really, really like to do, more than anything, is get some Papa John's papadias. Or Zaxby's fried pickles. Anything. I've been starving and I'd love to insult each other over brunch. Which I also think would be more productive than standing around here and—"

Nate balled his fist and pounded it against the porch column it had been resting on, startling Wade into making the direct eye contact he'd been avoiding. Nate's stare was intense and searching, gray-blue eyes and clenched jaw in full effect, but it was completely without the anger Wade was hoping for, and that made him want to flinch away more than anything.

They'd long ago started sharing their most gruesome injuries and ugly super-cancer/techno-organic virus stories with each other, leaving voice messages now and then just to list off the odd damage done to their bodies to an understanding ear, often to no response, and it had become something of a ritual. The fact that Wade was being evasive now was a betrayal, and given the circumstances, likely felt like a punishment. As bitter as Wade was that he'd been investigating A.I.M. for Nate when he got caught, that Nate, a literal time traveler, had the time to ask all these favors but never the time to just exist in the same room with him, that overextending himself as a big damn hero (who had to make sure not a single knee was scraped and not a single report the world over was filed incorrectly) would always take priority over him… As much as he wanted Nate to feel just a little bad about all of that, it really wasn't. It was the opposite.

"You don't really want to know more," he muttered, feeling guilty now.

"Cut the crap."

"Besides, what was that you were asking me? How did I let that happen? Me? You want to know how at fault I am for my months of imprisonment and psychological torture? Would that ease your conscience, big guy? Do you want to hear more about how I was jacking off, like always, classic Deadpool, not on a mission to help your sorry ass, how I deserve everything that ever happens to—fuck, Nate!"

Nathan was now clutching his left wrist, turning it over and inspecting every inch of his arm and its sores, knocking the trauma blanket off him and sending jolts of pain through his shoulder. He waited a long beat. "You ate yourself," he finally said. It was a statement. Nondescript voice.

Wade suddenly felt shaky. He tried to pull his arm back, but he didn't have the energy to use his full strength and Nate didn't loosen his grip. "So?" he finally sputtered. "I told you, I was hungry. I was really fucking hungry. I was hungry, and it was dark, and my brain was melting, and I needed to feel something, and—why are you interrogating me if you already know everything? Fuck you. Regular old Sunday School God, aren't you? Watched me masturbate in there, I bet. You wanna talk about the things I put in my mouth? Hooo, boy. I hope you liked the bit where I—"

"I lifted it just now from the mind of one of the men that brought you here. His memories of your injuries when they found you. I put two and two together."

Insufferable. Fucking insufferable. The most annoying man on earth.

A silence hung between them for what felt to Wade like hours, but may have only been seconds. He let out a shaky huff. "Well?" he managed. Don't get too excited, everyone. Can'ts out of the bag, we've now revealed the most useless information of all time! It was bad, okay, Nate? It was really fucking bad. It was bad when A.I.M. was actually there, and worse when they weren't. So it fucking goes. Lots of things are bad. My life is generally pretty bad. Are you happy? Does that satisfy you? Can we move on now? Does knowing that I was—" he huffed again. "What do you get out of—"

Wade glanced back at Nate's eyes and completely lost his train of thought. They were wet. He was completely still, intently focused on Wade, but the trailing psychic energy from his left eye wagged and oscillated wildly as he were angry, or anxious. Wade could feel his thumb digging into his wrist, Nate seemingly unaware of the pressure he was using.

"Nate, it's fine. I've eaten worse. You can check with any motel I've ever stayed at. You know the shit I've seen. It's—"