Looks Like We're On Different Sides of the Fence Here

Oh, this is SO MUCH FUN! Deadpool thinks as he fires tranquilizer darts at Captain America again, and the good ol' Cap'n blocks them with his mighty red-white-and-blue shield of freedom and rescued kittens.

“Hercules can hit him a few times,” comes an oh-too-familiar voice, calm and self-assured as $%^&. “Deadpool has a healing factor.”

As if they all didn't already know that.

“He'll recover. Eventually,” Cable, aka Nathan Dayspring Askansi'son Gesundheit, says, stepping out into the room all glowing blue—no seriously, his left eye flashing blue, and a blue aura around him. Way to make a dramatic appearance, Nate. Just like always.

Soldier from the future here to save the world from its own—and his own—insanity.

And currently here to save me from mine, Deadpool thinks, and rather bitterly. Or so he believes. The #$&%$.

“Looks like we're on different sides of the fence here,” Nate says, approaching Deadpool with sure strides. Though please notice how he never once lets down his gravimetric force-field whatsit thingie. “I'll double whatever the Commission on Superhuman Activities is paying you.”

“My principles cannot be bought!” Deadpool says indignantly, cuz Nate soon-to-be-sainted, Savior of the World Cable thinks that he knows Deadpool so well.

“And I'll give you a bigger badge,” Cable adds. He keeps his gaze steady on Deadpool, not blinking.

Okay, so maybe Cable knows Deadpool pretty well after all.

“Oooooh! Can't/must conflict...!” Deadpool drawls out, as if he's really thinking about it.

He wasn't actually going to think about. But then he really thought about it.

In the middle of lifting his gun to fire at Cable, Deadpool pauses, tilting his head as he considered Cable. “You'll really pay me twice as much?”

“Yes,” Nate says evenly.

Getting paid more to be Cable's friend than to hunt down supers for the American government? Hey, why not?!

“And you'll really get me a bigger badge?” Deadpool prods.

“Yes,” Nate ss again.

“Will you make the badge big enough to cover my entire chest?” Deadpool asks.

“Yes.” The corners of Nate's lips are starting to twist up in that infuriating smirk.

He thinks he owns the show. Shows what he knows. I'm the one bringing in the comic sales and stealing fanpersons' hearts!

“And the badge will say anything I want it to?” Deadpool questions, and now he's really starting to get excited.

“Yes,” Nate agrees. “As long as it's not inappropriate.”

Deadpool is still pointing the tranquilizer gun at him, just in case. “Will you have the badge read: 'DEADPOOL IS OFFICIALLY THE MOST AWESOME PERSON EVER P.S. CABLE SUCKS'?” Deadpool says hopefully, grinning beneath the mask.

Cable blinks for a moment, surprised, before he quickly collects himself and says, “Yes, if that's what it takes.”

“You're seriously willing to pay a high monetary fee and bribe with huge official shiny badges engraved with a label that degrades you in order to secure my friendship?” Deadpool asks, somewhere between suspicious, disbelieving, and hopeful.

It seems that Cable only picked up on the last emotion, because he lets his gravimetric force-field thing drop so he's not all glowy blue anymore and smiles—and not just his usual I-know-something-you-don't smile, but a genuine, yes-I-really-mean-it-and-I-actually-enjoy-your-company smile. “Yes.”

“Huh,” Deadpool says, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “And you're really actually going to do all those things for me?”

“Yes, Wade,” Nate says, patiently, but still smiling gently.

“And you're not going to use me to make me make a fool of myself on television to make you look better?” Deadpool asks, doubtful.

Nate's expression drops, and he looks almost... sorry? “No, Wade,” he says, tone lowering to almost a deep murmur. “I'm not going to do that.”

“Okay then,” Deadpool shrugs, dropping the gun to the ground and clapping his hands together, and the sudden loud noise makes the renegade heroes watching the scene jump, startled. “Sign me up for the resistances force!”

Nate practically beams.

The assembled rebel superheroes glance at each other in confusion and alarm, before looking back at the two friends (?) standing there grinning at each other, looking like maybe they want to hug it out.

“Soooo,” Deadpool says finally, glancing around at the revel superheroes who just witnessed a very personal friendship-problem-resolution that they couldn't possibly understand, before glancing down at the cement floor of the warehouse, toeing at it with his boot, before looking back up at Nate. “Where's my badge?”

“And how do we know Deadpool won't change sides again if the American government gives him even more money and an even bigger badge?” Captain America asks Cable dubiously, as they watch Deadpool prancing around the rebel hideout showing off his large new badge to everyone.

“I can beat any offer that they make,” Cable says calmly, watching Deadpool with maybe a slight hint of a smile.

Captain America turns to stare at him incredulously. “And you're really willing to buy Deadpool's... friendship?” He says that last word like what he actually wants to say is 'temporary alliance.'

“I'd rather have Deadpool beside me than against me,” Cable says, still with that impeccably calm demeanor. “And he is a friend. We just...” Cable pauses, lips thinning for a moment. “Had some misunderstandings. What you witnessed was me fixing them.”

Captain America turned his attention back to Deadpool, who was skipping over to them.

“Ta-daaaaa!” the mercenary sang, shoving the three-foot-by-three-foot badge into their faces so that the inscription: DEADPOOL IS OFFICIALLY THE MOST AWESOME PERSON EVER P.S. CABLE SUCKS, was all that they could see. “It's official now, see?! I'm hanging this up on my wall and whipping it out whenever Nate-y gets all holier-than-thou!”

Cable, for some reason, is smiling slightly. Captain America says skeptically, “How can you whip it out if it's hanging on your wall?”

“Hey,” Deadpool says, narrowing his eyes and wagging a finger at the supersoldier. “Never underestimate the powers of the unexplainable-plothole capabilities of the Marvel Universe!”

Then he skips away to go find Daredevil and 'dare him to say that Deadpool's not the most awesome person ever now.'

“I don't get how you can stand him,” Captain America says after the mercenary's out of ear-shot.

“He'll make a very valuable ally to your cause,” Cable states, still almost-maybe-smiling. “Just wait and see.”