Chapter Text
Ah, Queens. Favourite haunt of low-rank criminals; prime spot for muggings; home to whingey underage spiders in every universe but this. Here and now, rather than an irritating web-slinger, New York’s second-largest borough provided habitat to a hero of an altogether different cut.
Or rather, a villain.
***
Evan Sabahnur sat glumly on the windowsill, and leaned his forehead against the glass. The street was bustling with Saturday shoppers. A hotdog stall on the corner rose above the crowd, a dingy red-and-white monolith. Its plastic front was bleached from the sun; the banner had been sheared down one side and flapped feebly in the hot, gusty breeze.
Evan exhaled, obscuring the scene with mist. People-watching was becoming something of a habit. While Wade claimed there was “endless fun” to be found perusing his porn-and-Bea-Arthur collection (not mutually exclusive) and pirating cable from the couple next door, Evan found little could hold his attention these days. He’d try to concentrate on schoolbooks. He’d sit down and tell himself he would get to the end of Paul Blart (another on Wade’s endless recommendation lists) and he’d laugh while doing it. But time and time again, he’d find himself drifting here to this sunlit, drafty spot, where he could watch the world pass on without him.
Because that’s what the world did.
It continued. Come rain or fall, asteroid crash, alien domination, or rise of a wannabe dictator – all problems the X-Men dealt with on a daily basis – the world continued. And so it would continue, for years upon years upon years. And then, like everything else in the universe, that continuation would cease.
Humans had a name for that moment. Dedicated a whole book to it in the Bible, even – but Evan didn’t want to think about that.
So long as he was here, the world was safe.
Evan was a boy in a bubble, trudging through each day on dull routine. He ate cold leftovers for breakfast. He ran a routine: cardio, weights, the works. His neighbor had banged on the floor at first, but Evan accustomed to his schedule and timed his sessions accordingly. (Windowgazing revealed that he was a portly middle-aged black man who worked nine-to-five and adjourned to the bar until last orders, alternating between these venues as regular as clockwork. He was normal. Human. Evan’d never exchanged a word with him, and yet he’d never been jealous of anyone more.)
After that, he perused his textbooks until lunch. They seemed out of place in Wade’s musty house, which smelt of disuse and dust mites, with the faintest underlay of rotting tacos that Evan had yet to locate the source off. Storm donated them, Wade claimed – which meant Wade had crept into the mansion at midnight and bounded away with the entire contents of a stock cupboard. As a result, Evan had multiple copies of the same books in such various subjects as math, geology, political science, music, and history of art, all very shiny and smelling of new plastic. Wade had looked so delighted when he presented them that Evan hadn’t had the heart to say only two were at high school level. Doctor McCoy had said he was a smart boy, and that he should strive to further his learning.
With that in mind, he drew away from the window – palm lingering ghostlike on the glass until he had to choose between removing it and dislocating his arm. He selected a tome from Wade’s lopsided shelves.
College grade math. Whoopee.
Evan crossed to the sofa, locating the least moth-eaten cushion by muscle memory alone. The book was deposited on the coffee table. The coffee table, being another of Wade’s less-than-stellar Ikea constructions, in turn deposited book and self on the floor. Evan couldn’t be bothered to rebuild it, for the fourteenth time. Sighing, he shifted the book onto his lap and opened it to the latest page.
His pen was down the crack in the sofa where he’d left it. He’d torn the pages out of the last iteration of this textbook in anger, then panicked and thrown them from the window when he realized they’d only clog the loo (in hindsight, Wade’s thievery hadn’t been a total failure. At least Evan had plenty spares to choose from.) He couldn’t stop dreaming of a face with blue lips. He laughed sometimes at nothing, and he hadn’t talked to anyone in a month.
Evan wondered if this was what going crazy felt like. He’d have to ask Wade, next time he dropped by – although of course that was assuming Wade remembered where he’d stashed him, or remembered him at all.
Evan tried to be disciplined about studying, he really did. This amounted to a futile hour spent convincing himself that the effort would be worth the pay-off, while crunching through problems at the pace of a dead sloth. Every time he concentrated, loose thoughts kicked up beneath the wheels of his mind like dirt under a motorbike. Why bother? Algebra won’t change anything. It’s not like you’ll ever fit in.
Evan’s biro skidded across the paper.
The figures that’d been floating in his mind’s eye, almost within grasp, promptly scattered. Evan surveyed the mark he’d left; the slender black gash that split the page end to end. Then, thoughtfully, he added to it. And added, and added, and added some more…
The dense clot of black grew as he scribbled. Cy Twombly would have been proud. Numbers, sums, letters; nothing escaped the furious consumption of his ink. When Evan sat back, panting with tears on his face, he found a page of black zig-zags and an empty pen. After that, it was time for dinner. He ordered takeout with the card Wade had given him (and the memory of his gloved fingers, feverish-warm as the rest of him and textured even through the lycra, was one of those many little lifelines Evan liked to recall when he made his daily decision between applying the razor to his chin or his neck).
Evan tucked into the Chinese, lukewarm from the slow elevator-journey. He used the chopsticks at first, like he always did, and like he always did he found that they spent more time being fumbled and dropped in sticky sauce than lifting food to mouth. He transitioned to knife and fork – one of two pairs of cutlery this safe-house stowed. He always used the same ones; it reminded him that Wade was coming back.
The levering of steaming noodles between his lips (stupid blue apoccy-lips) became mechanical. Evan’s eyes unfocused. He ate until the tub was empty, then rinsed it and threw it into the recycling along with all the others. When the box was overflowing, he’d sneak it down to the collection point at the dead of night – which was also when he accessed the washers and dryers in the apartment complex’s crummy launderette. At Xavier’s Institute, Evan had been visible: painfully so, like an exposed nerve. Here, he was a ghost. It was better that way.
He stowed the spring rolls he’d ordered as a side in the fridge. Inhaled the ripe, greasy stench of junkfood overwhelming Wade’s kitchen-cum-sitting room, and went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, comb his hair, and practice his smile. He could watch more Golden Girls reruns. Or he could go to bed and stave off the tedium through unconsciousness.
That was a no-brainer.
Pun intended, Evan thought, and giggled to himself as he stripped to change. He looked around furtively afterwards, hounded by recollections from the School where every laugh and scowl had been interpreted as evidence for an impending spiral into genocidal madness. He didn’t have to maintain a banal smile nowadays, though. Not when there was no one there to see it.
Evan let his face relax from its forced neutral, and got into bed. He’d be up with the sunrise to watch the morning commuters, and then his day would wash, rinse, and repeat. And maybe – just maybe, if he prayed extra hard – tomorrow Wade would come.
***
Wade didn’t come. Someone else did.
It was study time. The ruined pages from their last session had just made their exodus. Evan’s aim had improved; he could hit the dumpster even with the added variable of windspeed, which threatened to dash his crumpled paper-ball into the wall and send it ricocheting down the street like tumbleweed in a tornado. Mission accomplished, he was balancing his pen on his nose and thinking about anything but algebra when someone banged on the door.
“Wade?” a voice said.
It was not a voice Evan recognized. He froze nevertheless, until knocking and voice resumed. “Wade, I know you’re in there.” Evan held his peace – if only because Wade’s ridiculous, gravelly voice was impossible to mimic. There followed a sigh. A long sigh. “It’s me. And, before you ask – no, I am not an evil clone. If you’re thinking of course an evil clone would say that, then the last words you said to me were ‘Your fly is down’.”
More silence. Evan held his breath. His thoughts were moving too fast, slipping away from him like slippery minnows, and the harder he tried to grab them the easier they slithered from his grasp. This person knew Wade? Did they know him? How did they know he was here? Were they a superhero?
The sigh was now tinged with aggravation. “I understand you might be angry with me for leaving you, Wade. But the demands of this timeline are strenuous, and I am duty bound to put them first. You know that.”
If Wade were here, he’d tell this goon just what he thought about being doodie-bound to anyone. If Wade were here, he’d have broken the silence ages ago.
“Wade, you can’t hide from me, remember? I’m a telepath.” Evan’s heart stopped. Then restarted, because if this person were telling the truth they’d have barged in and put a slug in his head the moment they realized what he was. Just like Uncle Custer – Fantomex. Whatever this guy’s codename, he was a goon and a liar, and Evan disliked him already.
But he knew the sort of company Wade kept. The man on the other side of the door might well be a merc– which meant it would be very, very bad if Evan, mutantkind’s most wanted, were to be found. He swallowed and shoved his textbook under the cushion. Pushing to his feet, a little unsteady, he began a methodical comb of the room for a place to hide.
When did running for his life become the norm? Oh yeah. It always had been. There was still hope though. If he kept his mouth shut, the man might lose interest and move on…
“Wade.” Or not. Frustration had ceded to worry. “Wade, you’re being very quiet. Are you alright?”
Shit. Evan vacillated between window and bathroom, gnawing his cobalt lips bloody. He dived for the latter. Better no innocent civilians get caught up as collateral – if Evan was doomed, he wasn’t taking anybody with him. As always, his instincts proved correct, and the next time the man spoke it was in warning. “Wade, I’m coming in. I’ll pay for the door.”
Maybe not a merc after all was all Evan could think, as the thin wood splintered around a broad-knuckled metal fist. He’d never known guns-for-hire to offer reparations of their own free will – but then again, he’d never known a gun-for-hire like Wade Wilson, so perhaps he ought to be more open minded.
For now though, learning to be non-judgmental about one’s occupation came second to fear. Awful fear, the likes of which Evan hadn’t felt since Daken had told him the Truth and eroded the world from beneath his feet. It wasn’t the fear of defeat. Whoever the intruder was, Evan was sure he could take him. What terrified him was the part of him that didn’t want to. Calling it a voice would be too simple (and anyway, Wade would be jealous). It was more of… a sentiment. A sentiment which insisted it would be easier, kinder, better for everyone involved, if he offered himself up to the slaughter. It didn’t impart this fact with any vindication. Rather it was soft and gentle, enfolding his body in a comforting embrace as it whispered no one would miss him. And the worst thing was, it was right.
Evan clutched the textbook to his chest. Well? Who would care, at the end of the day? Not Storm and the others – they’d mistrusted him from the start, and after Manhattan Evan had alienated everyone he’d once assumed to be on his side. (Everyone except Wade. But Wade was crazy, and Wade was used to losing people. Evan told himself he’d get over it.)
Which was why when Nathan followed the static fizzle of an unreadable mind to the bathroom and nudged open the door, fully expecting to find a decostumed Deadpool hunched over the toilet and whinging about bad Mexican, he instead discovered a boy with tear streaked cheeks; a boy knelt on the floor with his hands above his head, one still clasping the spine of a flopped-open algebra book.
A boy with Apocalypse’s face.