Chapter 140: Deadpool vs. Wolverine
Gunsmoke hung over Hell's Kitchen like weather. Bullets traced angry lines through the dark streets. The X-Men had dispersed per plan, each moving through the chaos like a ghost with a specific destination.
Logan had found a corner.
He stood there with a cigarette, watching the firefight around him with the detached calm of a man waiting for a bus. Rounds snapped past him. He didn't blink.
He tilted his head back and looked at the moon.
"Most boring war I've ever been in," he muttered, to no one. "This neighborhood better have a bar still open somewhere."
He knew it didn't. Nobody with any sense was running a business tonight.
He was still thinking about it when a voice came from somewhere above him.
"Brother. You too, huh? I always say — great minds." A pause. "I know a place. Want to go?"
Logan spun, claws halfway out, scanning the roofline.
"Who's there. Show yourself."
A figure dropped from the second floor.
Red suit. Two swords crossed on his back. The landing was clearly supposed to be impressive.
It wasn't. He stumbled on touchdown and grabbed the wall to avoid going down entirely.
Logan recognized him. Deadpool. One of the Lord of Hell's Kitchen's inner circle.
Deadpool straightened up, one hand pressed to his lower back. Stuck the landing. Mostly. The back is fine. The back is definitely fine.
He arranged himself on the ground — just lay down, propped his head on one hand, and looked up at Logan like they were at a picnic.
Logan stared at him.
"You're a superhero, right?" Deadpool asked, studying him with genuine curiosity. "Like me?"
"You know who I am?"
Logan heard something come into his own voice that he hadn't intended — a note of wanting. He cleared it away immediately. But for half a second, something had moved across his face. You heard about me. You know something about where I came from.
Deadpool tilted his head. "I don't know you, no. But your face has a whole novel written on it." He sat up. "You want to get a drink? I've got liquor. You've got stories. Seems like a fair trade."
Logan's expression flattened. He thought Deadpool was mocking him.
The claws came all the way out — three blades per hand, catching the ambient light as he lunged.
Deadpool sidestepped without urgency and watched the claws pass by his face with evident scientific interest.
"Does that hurt? Genuine question." He ducked under the backswing. "Having them come out of your actual hand like that — that seems like it should really hurt."
Logan pressed the attack. Deadpool kept moving, fluid and unhurried, the two swords coming up to deflect rather than counter.
"Does the rest of you do that too?" Deadpool asked, glancing down at Logan's midsection with an expression of theatrical concern. "Because if so, I feel bad for everyone involved."
"Shut up."
"What's your name? Are you Avengers or X-Men? I know Colossus pretty well — he here tonight?" He parried a strike. "You sure you don't want to get that drink? The bar I'm thinking of probably has its good staff on, I'm just saying."
Logan stopped talking and started fighting in earnest.
The thing about Deadpool was that he looked ridiculous right up until the moment he didn't. The chatter, the stumbling entrance, the lying on the ground — none of it was inaccuracy. It was something else. Logan had fought a lot of people who fought scared and a lot of people who fought cocky, and this was neither. This was someone who simply didn't have a particular relationship with consequences.
Logan found an opening and took it. The claws caught Deadpool across the ribs — not deep, but real. Blood came through the red fabric.
Deadpool looked down at it. Looked up. "Okay, that one landed."
Then he reversed his grip and put a blade into Logan's chest.
Both of them stepped back.
Logan looked at the wound. He could feel it healing already — the familiar pull of tissue knitting itself back together, bones resetting, the body insisting on continuing. He'd had this happen ten thousand times. He was used to it.
He looked up to find Deadpool watching his chest with the expression of someone who has just confirmed a theory.
"Oh interesting," Deadpool said.
They looked at each other.
"That's the same thing that just happened to me, isn't it," Logan said.
"Little bit, yeah." Deadpool tilted his head. "Hey, did you used to be disfigured? Like, did you look a lot worse before and then it fixed itself? Because I'm on year three of waiting for the fixing part and I'm starting to think the experiment was slightly flawed."
Logan's eyes narrowed. He still didn't know if he was being mocked.
"I'm serious," Deadpool said. He wasn't performing. He was genuinely curious. "If you and I are the same — if we can just keep doing this until the sun comes up and neither of us goes down — then what exactly is the point of the next four hours? Like, strategically."
Logan didn't answer.
"I'm not saying I'm not going to fight you. I'm saying I've done the math and I think the math says we go get a beer."
He leaned against the wall, spinning one of his swords idly.
"Also, between us? I know you're not really here to burn this neighborhood down. You've got the look of a guy who doesn't care about the mission. Whatever it is you actually want — I promise you Ethan will figure it out. He's insufferably good at that. I'm basically doing unpaid labor for him at this point."
Logan was quiet.
The thing was — he wasn't wrong. Logan had been assigned here to do a job, but the job had never exactly lit a fire in him. He'd figured at minimum he'd tie up one of Hell's Kitchen's main people. That part was technically accomplished.
He just didn't particularly want to spend the next several hours listening to this.
He was still running the calculation when Deadpool stepped forward, threw an arm around his shoulders, and started walking.
"Come on. I know a place. Good stuff, not the cheap garbage. We can talk." He steered Logan around a corner, already in full stride. "So you want to know what Hell's Kitchen is actually like? Because I've been here a while and I have opinions—"
Logan looked at the arm around his shoulders.
He looked at where they were walking.
He thought about pulling free, going back, being somewhere Deadpool wasn't talking.
He kept walking.
That was how one of the X-Men's primary field assets spent the Battle of Hell's Kitchen: at a bar, learning more about Wade Wilson's personal philosophy than anyone had ever needed to know.
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