2013.07.05 - False Sense of Security

A lot can happen in 24 hours. Domino's barely been back in the New York area when she was contacted about a supposed job, which turned out to be a ruse, which led to her life being turned upside down. Her car needed to get towed, tires needed to be replaced, and a file that had been positively full of incriminating evidence on her had been picked through, several times, with several empty bottles to show for her effort. She's barely back in this country and already she's about to be pulled back out of it again. If it isn't one thing it's forty-seven others.

At least she got a slightly used Huey chopper out of something completely unrelated.

There isn't much time before the real world lunges after her once more. In moments like these there's only one thing left to do.

Get completely shit-faced.

It's a dim, grimy little dive of a bar, a great place for nobodies to remain nobodies and somebodies to disappear within the cracks of the aged woodwork. She's got a dark corner booth picked out for herself and an impressive collection of empty glasses taking shape around her. Why half-ass something when one can take it up to eleven?

The bar gets quiet. Reaaaaally quiet. Like in the Western flicks, where the bartender stops playing, and all the card players get against a wall or prepare to flip their tables over. The jukebox in the corner, blastin' out your favorite song of warm nights suddenly squelches and turns off.

Deadpool fills the doorway. Literally. It's not something that gets emphasized a lot, with all the springing and running and jumping, but Deadpool is a massive specimen, and his eye slits are narrowed at all the silence.

"You! Barkeep. Bring me four serving wenches and a barrel of your best ale!" he declares, pointing a finger at the bartender. He happens to let the door swing shut on his face when he does, to an 'ow' and a 'damnit!' then kicks the door entirely off its hinges, knocking some hapless drunkard off his feet. "Tonight, I feel like drinking until my liver starts to rot. Then possible a game of Jenga, and a run to White Castle." Overloaded with enough weapons to make him look like a walking advertisement for Hammer Industries, he heads straight for the stool next to Domino and drops onto the seat- a hulking assassin covered in improbable array of weapons, next to one of the world's best killers, all slender and knifelike next to his perpetually adolescent bumbling.

Just when Domino thought things couldn't possibly get any worse: Deadpool. With the silence that passes through the tavern she looks toward the door then softly groans, letting her forehead drop into an open cradle of ghostly white fingertips. "I so did not need this tonight."

On the contrary, a familiar old face may be exactly what she does need. The two had been through enough in the past. He's looking to get drunk, she's halfway there, already... It seems like a pretty decent turn of events on that front. Why drink alone when she can drink with one of the looniest creatures on the planet? It should be entertaining, at least.

Maybe she's being too hard on the guy. Give him a chance, remember their history. At the very least, respect what he's capable of.

"I think they stopped serving it by the barrel about nine decades ago," she nonchalantly replies when the walking weapons emporium flops down beside her. "But, if you've come to destroy your liver you can't do much better than this joint. How's life been treatin' ya, Wade?"

Deadpool holds a finger up for silence. There's a baffled few moments and then, indeed, the bartender hoists a barrel- well, a keg- up onto the counter. Apparently, Deadpool's a regular in here, as most of the clientele have evacuated the immediate area.

"C'est la vie," Deadpool says with a broad shouldered shrug. He clamps his mouth down on the tap and starts drawing down beer as if he were sucking down a cold coca cola. "Nothing really exciting. No mammoth plots happening, no fun villains to team up with, no superhero teams to annoy. Hung out with a hot British supermodel with funky mind powers, that was kind of awesome. Think Lucy Pinder, but with thinky sword knife things."

Blink. Stare. "I stand corrected."

Alright, that was kind of impressive.

Domino can't help but be silent as well for a moment or four, unable to look away from the keg-slamming she's now witnessing. Seems like that whole liver-destroying comment was legit.

"Yeah, scene's been pretty dry again. I spend more time in other parts of the world, chasing down some tiny scrap or another. No need to pretend to be a hero, there's enough of the real thing swarming this part of the globe."

British supermodel with mind powers and thinky swords--"Betsy? Damn, I haven't heard a word about her in months. You..managed to leave her in one piece, right? She can be a little difficult to follow."

In more ways than one. Which is why Dom's decided to never follow that woman into battle ever again. Latveria, it had been a difficult and stupid lesson for her.

Deadpool belches sonorously. "Different Betsy. Hypertime, y'know, all that. No more hot Asian chick, now she's a hot British looking chick." He shrugs. Hot Asian Betsy was waaaay hotter. "Yeah, but I mean- sexy Asian ninja, or Lucy Pinder with mind-fu?" That's a tough one. What's the other guy think? Me? I'm a post mind-transfer fan. Hot Asian Ninja, all the way. Deadpool nods. "Yeah. Definitely hotter as a ninja chick." He takes another long drag from the keg. "I think the problem is that we don't have enough supervillains. I mean, we've got amoral mercenaries coming out the yin-yang, but we don't have any Lex Luthors or Doctor Dooms doing their thing. Hiring us out to whack do-gooders and stuff. That'd bring in /tons/ of work."

Dom wastes no time in looking confused, "Hyper-what?" It's followed with a quick shake of her head, "But she had the accent, and ..but..."

(Okay, stop right there, Domino. Think less, drink more.)

She blindly reaches for her glass and downs some more of its warm, amber-hued contents.

"I get that you'd go for the ninja chick. Seriously, do you take those swords to bed with you?" To mention of a lack of supervillains she mock-salutes with a raising of her glass, "Without villains no one gets any work. Can't remember the last time I saw the Avengers slapped across the evening news. Now we've got the heavy-hitters responding to everything from purse-snatchings to kittens stranded in low-hanging trees. Though..let's be fair. Doom can suck it. If you ask me, you might want to keep an eye on the Genosha situation. Things are only gonna get hotter out there, sooner or later someone's gonna want someone important taken out of the picture."

"What, you wanna try to off Magneto?" Deadpool barks a laugh. "Good luck with that. I heard someone tried to kill him with a polymer knife and he turned the guy inside out. There's going toe to toe with, say Luke Cage, and then there's trying to pick a fight with a volcano. That guy's a force of freakin' nature. And he's always got these two assassin babes with him, that shapeshifter and the Russian chick." He lifts the keg of beer- not even half empty- with one hand, tilting it up so he can get a more comfortable angle on the valve. "And both of 'them' are scary enough. No thanks. How about Batman? We could go beat Batman up. No one likes that guy, he's a dick with a cape and a hero complex."

Domino quickly lifts her palms up from the table, "Whoa there, Tiger. I didn't say that. Besides, who says that it isn't another mutant that organizes a hit? There's still lots of other people on that island, from what I've heard. Civil unrest, more complications than cable channels, it's the literal powder keg. There's gonna be a spark, there always is."

Sometimes she's even behind it!

Pale blue eyes stare in wonder once more as the keg is strong-armed off of the table. It's like a trainwreck, she can't help but watch.

"Batman..." Ah. Hmm. Now that she's gone and made working buddies with some of the vigilantes out that way she can't even stay too upset at the Dark Knight himself for having stepped on her toes a time or three in the past. It doesn't change one thing, though. "Definitely a dick. I wonder whatever happened to his usual troublemakers. There was that thing in the news about the Joker the other day, but even that seems ..I don't know. Uninspired? That's not 'oh my god' wicked so much as a momentary hiccup."

"Right? No one wants to be a villain. Maybe we should do the villain thing for a while," Deadpool belches. "I mean, I don't know. Cause a ruckus. Pick a fight with a superhero. You know, one of the 'serious' superheroes. There are too many wannabes out there. We could go find, like, that Odinson kid, and smack him around until Thor shows up." He's clearly getting a little drunk at this point. "Shee, here's the deal. We start with the street heroes- make 'em go home cryin'. Sooner or later, Batman or somethin' shows up, an' we put the smack on him. 'cause he ain't expectin' proper fighters," he says, wagging a clumsy finger. "He's 'spectin' me, an' everyone knows I'm nuts. I don' think it even occurs to him that you could hit him with a bullet from six hunnered yards out an' boom, Bats is on the inactive roster. We coul' start knockin' 'em down one at a time 'till they start actin' like heroes an' not wannabe crimestoppers."

"Maybe if you were looking for action and adventure instead of a paycheck," Domino counters. "Not sure if you've noticed this or not but the market for offing superheroes is even more vacant than this place on a Tuesday afternoon. That, and not everyone at this table can bounce back from taking Mjolnir to the face. Maybe you can't be killed but I'm thinking that after a couple of rounds with Thor and you might wish you could be. Damn near broke my arm the last time I hit him in the face, and my car's never been the same since I ran him over."

Yeah, she kinda knows Thor.

"Yeah, though the Bat's big thing is that he 'is the night,' or whatever. Taking him out at a range is child's play, the problem is trying to find him lurking out there, and good luck getting him to sit still on a nice roost long enough to take the shot. Guy's better wired to that part of the city than an oldschool technophile."

"Hey, I'm just sayin'. You get Bats going, you get him thinking he's got the drop on me, I let him get a few Bat-Punches in, and then, BAM!" Deadpool slaps his palm on the countertop. ".308 to the skull and he's unconscious for a week. We could even start by luring out his little buddies into stupid traps, then jump out and go 'ha hah, we got you!', or whatever. Details!" he slurs. "But c'mooooon, why not? How fun would it be to be the bad guys for a change? We could rob some banks! Steal some jewels! Do fun stuff!"

There's a lot of people out there that would be appalled at the conversation these two are sharing. Given their appearances and all of the alcohol and weaponry involved, very few would ever speak out against it.

Most of them already fled the bar some time ago.

"Just unconscious, from a three oh eight? C'mon, I'm a much better shot than that," Domino counters with a slight grin. "If I'm going for the brainpan with a thirty caliber, they're not getting back up again. Ever."

Another pass of her glass and she kicks back, somehow, against all of the odds, starting to feel relaxed. This is crazy, but it's also familiar territory. "Plenty of folks already believe that we're the bad guys. Heroes don't carry guns, heroes don't blow shit up and kill other people."

Robbing a bank... Wasn't she--oh right, that Geiger dude.

"If you need a little excitement in your life you might take up skydiving without the chute."

Deadpool rapidly pumps the keg up again as it loses pressure, then jams the spigot into his mouth and opens the valve again. His stomach is visibly distending from the sheer amount of booze he's intaking. "You're /bored/, Dom. You're tryin' to fight clean an' be friends with everyone an' not piss anybody off. You forgot that you're a mercenary. You ain't buddies with the X-men or the whoever you hang out with," Deadpool slurs. "The only people you can count on is the rest of us nutjobs. You can allus count on us to work for pay. That's the only real constant in life." He starts to get unsteadily to his feet. "You need a wakeup call, Domino. Y'all gotta 'member you jus' as deep in the dirt as th' res' of us. You," he says, poking her shoulder, "are just th' same as th' rest of th' club."

Somehow, watching Wade cram all of that beer into his gut is making Dom lose her interest in her own drunken pursuits.

It's what follows that has her sitting a bit more upright in her seat, her eyes slightly wider than a moment ago. At first the albino looks downright offended by the accusation.

It doesn't last.

Her gaze and shoulders alike hang a bit closer toward the table, breathing out a long sigh. "Sonuvabitch." Which that alone surprises her. A coherent, accurate thought, from Wade? While drunk off his ass? Well, playing the odds always was her deal. She's tried to work with the good guys before, and where did that land her? Maybe it didn't do any real harm to her career but it didn't exactly help it along any.

Alabaster fingers slowly massage the side of her head. It sucks to admit to it, but "You're right, Wade."

It's at that point that Wade tilts the keg up all the way, draining the last little bit of beer out of it, mouth open so the sweet frothy nectar can pour into his gaping maw. "Also, I'm really sorry 'bout this," he says, and for a moment, Deadpool sounds very sincere.

Then, with Domino's head lolling towards the bar, and the keg held a couple feet up, Deadpool just sort of flops drunkenly to the left. Probability and master reflexes, meet an intentionally clumsy Deadpool. The empty keg makes for a formidable improvised bludgeon, and will likely leave Domino with a fair concussion if it connects.

In part, Domino's wondering if the keg adds something to the drinking experience. 'If you can hold it over your head you're not drunk enough.' By the time the arms give out the keg hits them on the head and ends their tab. Knowing the mouthy merc that's gone to drinking one keg at a time she wouldn't put it past the guy.

What she doesn't expect is an apology. Once more she's frowning, leaning back just enough to say "What are you going on about now?"

Moving shadow. Pitch, tilt, crap!

When reflexes aren't running up to par one has to improvise. Gravity versus gravity. With the keg falling down towards her she's pushing against the side of the table, letting that same force help pull her away from the point of impact.

Her glass isn't quite so lucky, its life of service ended with one definitive crack!

"Watch it with that thing, would ya?!"

Deadpool sighs heavily. "Dang. That would have worked out much easier than doing this." He reaches for his belt and shakes what looks like an asthma inhaler, then sets the butt end on the table and pushes down on it. A spritz of pressurized mist surges into the air like a popped balloon full of dust, glittering in the low lights. It's a potent knockout gas- the sort of incapacitant used to knock out extremely hostile and aggressive mutants. It's strong enough to make Deadpool slump in his seat and groan a bit incoherently, and the handful of regulars loitering yet in the bar immediately crumble to the ground.

Dom already knows something isn't quite right. She's drinking with Deadpool, it's a given! But, the guy never apologizes to her, and when the keg fails to connect with her head the next thing she's expecting to hear isn't 'dang.'

Something's up. She's not sure what but she doesn't want to stick around and find out. As his hand reaches for his belt there's that familiar twitch in the back of her shoulders, the sudden urge to do something.

(MOVE, Dom!)

She's out of her seat, lunging across the floor, blitzing for the front door as if the entire building is about to explode behind her (it just might!)

Then something's glittering in the air.

(Oh, he didn't--)

WHUMP.

Deadpool lurches to his feet, unsteadily, and staggers towards Dom. She gets more spritz in the face- just to be sure- and with a methodical practice, he starts relieving her of her weapons. "You'll get 'em all back, I promise," he slurs. "Nothin' personal. An' I ain't coppin' a feel. This strictly pr'fessional." Once Dom's divested of her arsenal, Deadpool hoists her onto his shoulder, carrying her limp form as easily as he would a twenty pound bag of potatoes. He starts lumbering towards the door. "Oh, what the hell," he says. He turns and draws an SMG from his hip holster and sprays the building with an extended magazine- windows shatter, bullets whine and ricochet, bottles break. It's utter carnage for a few seconds.

"There. Now you can't say I didn' take you down without knockin' down a buildin'," he mutters, stumbling out the door and towards a waiting windowless van.

All the luck in the world can't keep a person from needing to breathe. On the upside Domino won't have to cover her tab tonight, which had already climbed to a respectable number. She can't even be blamed for the gunfire that follows, she's unconscious!

Removing all of those weapons sheds almost a quarter of her overall mass, and makes for a much more carry-friendly body. Less pointy bits.

Now she's also in a van. There'll be time to bitch about it later.