2013-01-14 Where's my Whopper?

It's a busy evening in New York City, which is to say that it's basically an entirely normal evening in New York City. The streets are filled with shoppers, stragglers from rush hour, and the various elements of the populace that comprise one of the most diverse cities in the world. Perhaps the only thing out of the ordinary, sadly enough, is that the city remains mostly unaffected by alien invasions and metahuman attacks for a change. All in all, it's a peaceful day in New York. ... Which of course provides its own dangers.

Days like these cause even the most unusual people crawl out of the woodworks. One such example is the (not-so) fabled crimefighter and one of the many resident quacks of the superhero community, the masked vigilante known as The Question. He's made something of a pilgrimage to New York City from his resident Gotham with a specific purpose in mind, although hardly a nefarious. The audience may be wondering why he's chosen to do the mundane while costumed as something extraordinary, but there's a simple answer to this: The Question is quite aware of the massive amount of costumed fighters and general creeps populate the city on a regular basis. The fedora'd man can only assume that seeing a man in the streets with no face probably has a lesser effect as seeing a man made out of fire flying through the sky, and considering how many fiery superheroes there are... well, he's not too worried about appearing conspicuous. Besides... he feels more comfortable in his vague and mysterious persona than he does in his secret identity.

He shuffles along the street amongst the crowd, his blank face occasionally drawing a few looks until he reches his destination: a single, barely-occupied middle eastern cafeteria. Just what could he want there?

Deadpool looks like he's beat Question to the punch. Or the schwarma? It's apparent he's been holding the line up for more than a few minutes. The big guy is armed with enough weaponry to outfit a small third world army, and stands in front of the counter arms crossed, and tapping a finger against his masked chin judiciously.

"See, you /say/ you can't make me a Whopper, but I don't see a Whopper anywhere on your menu. And I /really/ want a Whopper," he informs the terrified employee and the increasingly irate manager.

"We are a Schwarma King! Not the Burger King!" the manager barks at Deadpool, throwing his hands into the air. "Order off the Schwarma menu! No Whoppers!"

"Right, Whoppers! That's what I'm saying," Deadpool says, earnestly. "I want a /Whopper/.

Oh yes, New York City is never at a loss for colorful characters. Indeed, it is a rare inhabitant who hasn't spotted one at some point or another. And one of the most famous -- or perhaps that is infamous judging by the general level of press he receives -- happens to be out and about on this particular chilly even in the greatest city in the world.

"Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can... gah! I'm never going to get that stupid song out of my head," c brightly costumed figure says as he swings high above the city streets, his easy grace enough to make most acrobats jealous, one outstretched arm flinging a webline towards a nearby ledge as he abruptly turns in midair, swinging down a different street. Grousing to himself all the way.

But wherever it was that he was heading, those plans come to a quick halt. There are plenty of strange sights in New York it's true, and more then a few of it's millions of inhabitants are rather jaded. A guy in a trenchcoat and fedora? Not something you see a lot of these days. But a guy in a trenchcoat, fedora and no face? Yeah, even in New York that draws a few stares and pointed fingers. For a moment Spider-Man can't quite figure out just what has caused a stir from down below, but as he gets far enough up the street the reasons for it become clear. "Huh. I wonder how he eats..."

The manager's face is dark from yelling, and Deadpool is growing increasingly confrontational. "Fine! I'll take a Whopper Junior if you won't make me a Whopper!" the big merc shouts, wagging a finger in the guy's face. To his credit, the manager stares Deadpool down, jabbing a finger in his chest (which is at his eye level).

"No Whoppers! No Whopper, no Whopper Junior, no Chicken Whopper! Schwarma! We make Schwarma here!" He gestures at the large board behind him.

"A schwarma's just a giant whopper, isn't it?" Deadpool asks the manager, a bit plaintively.

A faceless man is a decided peculiarity, something definitely looking into, but while he follows him for a short while, he doesn't seem to be causing any problems. At least none except drawing other's eyes and that is hardly a crime. But across the street the shouts that filter out into the chilly night are quite another thing. It may be nothing. It may be something. Schwarma? Whoppers? Okay, it's probably nothing but it's not as if Spider-Man exactly has a lot on the go at the moment. And following around the faceless guy is getting old. So the shouting it is!

It doesn't sound like a robbery... at worst nothing more then a difficult customer. Not the sort of thing he really needs to involve himself in. But hey, he's a good samaritan -- the Daily Bugle's opinion not withstanding. He doesn't mind settling an argument or two. Dropping from his perch several stories up, he lands in a crouch, peering at the Schwarma shop with a hint of disbelief. Okay... maybe there isn't anything that normal about this afterall. "Is there... a problem here?" he asks, taking a rather skeptical inventory of all the weapons draped off the costumed figure there.

The motion is so smooth, so thoughtless, that it almost beggars belief. Abruptly, a hand-cannon that looks like it might lob small artillery rounds is aimed generally at Spider-man, though Deadpool doesn't take his eye-mask-holes off of the manager. "Beat it, shrimpy," Deadpool remarks. "This is between me and Habib here."

The manager doesn't even flinch when Deadpool draws his pistol. "My name's James!" he declares, angrily. "James Smith!" He points at his chest, where a name badge confirms that assertion. "Not everyone from the Middle East is named Hakim or Muhammed or HABIB!"

Some guys are into guns. No doubt they could immediately identify exactly the make and model of that hand-cannon that is now pointed his way. Spider-Man... yeah, not so much. But it's big, it's threatening and it definitely doesn't look like the sort of thing a nut like this should be waving around. "Really?" he asks incredulously. "You're holding up a schwarma shop with that thing? Don't you think it's a little bit of overkill?" he suggests with a shake of his head before peering past him towards the defiant proprietor. "He's got a bit of a point. You're coming off as a bit of a racist. With a whole boatload of psycho tossed in," he adds helpfully. "Also... catch." And with that he lifts a hand in one quick, smooth motion as he fires of a stream of that web fluid towards the barrel of the weapon pointed his way.

Deadpool stops and looks at the barrel of his gun. "Buddy, you wouldn't know psycho if I walked over there and slapped you in your piehole," he informs Spidey sternly. "You got sticky white goo on my gun. That is gross on /several/ levels," he informs Spidey. "I mean, it's bad enough you've got this whole sort of weird perpetual puberty allegory going on, but man, you don't gotta hose it at me."

He points at James. "And Sheikel here-" he ignores the man's disguted protest- "isn't being robbed. I'm negotiating with him because he won't call his scharmas Whoppers. And in 'Murica, we have Whoppers, Big Macs, and Freedom Fries. 'Murica," Deadpool adds again. "Oh, also, you should know that my gun is built to prevent overpressure from congested barrel malfunctions-" in mid-sentence, he sprays a burst of ammo at Spidey, "such as bore obstructions, including mud and water."

Look at me, with my big words and using my Assassin: 9 rank to understand how my guns work! Whee!

"Ah ha!" Spidey exclaims as the gun-wielding stranger goes off on his rant. "That completely explains all those ridiculously oversized guns. Do we have a bit of a phobia? Perhaps some over compensation issues going on?" he suggests with a sage nod of his head. "Have you tried therapy? I mean other than wandering into random restaurants and demanding food they don't serve. I'm sure that's therapeutic... stupid, but therapeutic... but I bet there are better ways..." he says before abruptly breaking off his spiel.

There is, of course, a method to his own madness and while he is all too happy to banter back and forth that tingle in the back of his neck tells him that it is time to move. Now. So even as that finger is depressing on the trigger, Spidey fires off another webline -- this one upwards -- vanishing from the line of fire. Only when there is a break in the artillery barrage does a head poke down from above the storefront, peering in from his upside down vantage point. "Missed me," he says chipperly. But here, take a consolation prize or two," he offers, a flurry of web-balls whipped towards the man.

"There's no overcompensation! I can't help that all those supermodels molested me when I was sixteen!" Deadpool declares quickly. He utterly ignores Schwarma King's employees, drawing his other automatic pistol and standing akimbo. "All that hot hot sexing of the sexy ladies did not break my fragile childhood psyche!"

He sits on the edge of a table. "Really, though, there are some pretty profound issues with the hyperdevelopment of childhood sexuality in America," he says, in his best Presidential voice. "Hi. I'm Wade Wilson, and I'm here to talk to you about childhood sexuality. It's a difficult subject for parents to address, and I'm here with my good friend Spider-Man to help use him as an symbol for the changes in little Timmy's body."

The text in the window scrolls down two lines, to indicate a continued thought. "See, Timmy- much like Spider-man, your body is going through some changes. You are getting stronger, and finding it's fun to be mouthy to your parents. Sticky white stuff comes out of your body, and you will want to wear a mask because you're so hideously unattractive that no girl will ever talk to you. And that's ok, Timmy, because you can resort to cheap smack-talking, like Spider-man, and use humor as a defensive tool, while secretly crushing on, say, the hot redhead next door. Meanwhile, I'm the guy who's taking her to the prom, because I'm coocoo for cocoa puffs crazy, and the ladies like the nutballs."

"This has been a public service announcement, paid for by Deadpool whuppin' Spiderman's ass. We now return you to your regularly scheduled smackdown."

Deadpool nimbly leaps sideways as the web-balls thwip through the air. Both eyes clearly closed, he completely randomly sprays bullets into the ceiling both in Spidey's general direction, as well in several completely random directions. "Does that tingling feeling in your butt tell you you're getting shot at, or are you all just a twitter that you're meeting Marvel's poster child?"

"I hesitate to point it out because even you admit you're certifiable, but you're wearing a mask too. You know what they say about living in glass houses. Or maybe you don't. I'm guessing there's not room for a whole lot between those ears," Spider-Man retorts, again disappearing from view as that random gunfire goes off. Only periodically does he drop into view again -- never in the same place twice and rarely for more then a second or two -- just long enough for those weblines to yank those not sensible enough to run away out of the schwarma shoppe, swinging them out of the line of fire. Finally one of his weblines even snags James, jerking him out of the shopfront, onto the street outside. "Try to remember, not every New Yorker is this big a douche," he says to the man before whirling back to the shop, those webshooters now beginning to blanket the floor with that sticky web fluid. "Also your taste in burgers sucks. We've got the greatest food in the world around here and you want a Whopper. You should be ashamed. For that, and for being a walking, taling 90's cliche."

"My taste in food /rocks/," Deadpool retorts. "It's totally tubular and awesome. Cowabunga, and eat my shorts!" He doesn't even really bother aiming anymore. Gunfire just seems to be how he punctuates his sentences. "I can't help that The Whopper is the pinnacle of human culinary achievement. It's got veggies, flame-broiled beef, ketchup... it's amazing. Have you not /had/ a whopper? You can Have It Your Way!"

"And here I thought the special sauce would top your list," Spidey snaps back, once more out of sight as he clings to the wall above the storefront, only occasionally shifting position an instant before one of those rounds passes through where he was perched. Another of them punches through one of the windows of the parked cars that line the street, immediately setting off the blaring of horns as the car alarm goes off. "Oh great, now you're really disturbing the peace. I hope you're proud of yourself," he chides. For a minute or two he remains out of sight, letting him fire off those guns randomly. But they never seem to go quiet for long. "Good lord, how much ammo is this moron carrying around?" he mutters under his breath.

Enough ammunition that you never see me running out of juice in the comics. How often do you run out of spidey goop for those wrist rockets? That was like, your /thing/ in the 90s. 'Hurr, lukit me, I'm spider man and I forgot to reload my webslingers!' You know, this is how I beat Taskmaster, right? Can't anticipate crazy!

Deadpool finally stops shooting, and looks around. "Well, this is getting boring. I'ma leave now," he declares, to no one in particular. He looks around, then grabs a schwarma off the table that was 'abandoned' by a rescuee and starts gnawing down on it. "You know, I still have no idea what a schwarma is. Deadpool, exit stage right!" He promptly dives over the counter and through the kitchen, heading out the back under the cover of the whooping car alarms out front.

Again Spider-Man drops from his perch atop the restaurant, landing in one of those impossible crouches with both hands extended, ready to fire of his webbing... and finding only a swinging door and a ruined shopfront. Shattered windows, walls, tables, countertops punched through with dozens -- hundreds -- of bullet holes. And the nutjob with the guns? Not there. It's both a relief -- he's tired of being shot at -- and annoying because if anyone should be locked up... and probably put in a straight jacket... mmmm... maybe several straight jackets -- it's that guy.

"My restaurant..." James offers.

In the distance... a rapidly approaching distance, the sound of approaching police sirens is unmistakable. "Uh yeah, sorry about that. Just remember, it was the guy with the gun. At least my webbing will dissolve in an hour, hour and a half tops so you can clean up..." he points out before looking back into the restaurant. The bullet-riddled restaurant. Yeah, web fluid on the floor isn't really his biggest problem. "...I'll be going now..." he adds quickly before making for the rooftops before anyone can decide that he's at fault afterall.