When Two Yappers Collide
Now you see dear reader, what they didn’t tell you in the critically acclaimed blockbuster movie that is Deadpool and Wolverine, is that the void is huge. Its, well…a void.
In fact, it’s so huge that during the movie, Wade and Logan only really explored a fraction of what the Void had to offer, which means when Wade first wakes up in the middle of a road in a run-down city in the pouring rain, he has no idea where he is at first.
When he manages to stand up, the first thing he notices is that his suit is soaked. He must’ve been knocked out for a while in order for it to get this water clogged.
“Ugh, give me 15 minutes in this suit and I’m going to start smelling like Al’s special salami stick she keeps wrapped up in the back of the fridge.” He mutters to himself, in disgust, then he looks up towards you, “What? It’s not like we really keep food in the fridge anyways. Al gets to store her meat sticks, and I get to put any of my body parts that fall off in there.” He shrugs.
Well, first thing he learned in mercenary school (Which, in reality was really just the first couple of years he started doing jobs at Sister Margaret's), was a good mercenary always observes their surroundings, using as much detail as possible to put together a sort of coherent theory, Wade was built different though, both literally and Gen Z slang wise. Even before Francis’ shitty at home “Build-a-Weapon X” experiements, Wade was a particularly skilled fighter, he easily would’ve worked his way up the ranks back in the Special Forces had he not been dishonorably dismissed for breaking chain of command countless times. Wade was also very observant, he could pick apart and read people, places and things with as few context clues as possible.
It didn’t take a fucking rocket scientist or even semi-skilled mercenary to figure out where he was though. It wasn’t the high-tech other worldly architecture or the moon shining from the fractured protective dome that seemed to encase this vast city, that let Wade know where he was, no. It was a fucking poster.
“Oh, if it isn’t Marvel’s ghost of cringemas past…” Wade breathes out in aw, staring at the tattered 15 foot acrylic poster that’s buried half in the ground.
The merc walks up to it and tries to wipe off some of the mud that’s now dripping down the poster presumably from all of the dirt that had accumulated on it pre-storm. “Looky here, if it isn’t this the saddest pile of shit you’ve ever seen.”
He looks up towards you again and grins, like a toddler who ate all of their Halloween candy right in front of you even when you just told them not to, “Here’s a little fun fact for you nerds out there who haven’t absolutely melted your brain with characters and lore brought to you by our Marvel overlords, Ms. Marvel isn’t a mutant, mutate, superhuman, or a Kree like her namesake is. She is Inhuman. And Hey! Feminists out there! Stop-Hey-S t o p, put down your pitchforks, put Twitter away, don’t touch your keyboards, it’s not because she’s a woman, she is a part of the species known as the Inhumans. Those are fuckers that float on a dystopian ass planet in space, have a Caste system tighter than Lois Lowry’s ‘The Giver’, who’s royal family engages in hardcore incest…So basically, it’s like Great Brittain.” Deadpool gives and exaggerated wink before continuing, “The Inhumans also happen to be one of the biggest flopping television shows for Marvel ever, surpassing ‘Green Lantern’ in embarrassment, especially considering they got a whopping 8 episodes before being cancelled and then were almost never talked about again outside of the comics. It sure didn’t help when fans and recent graduates with a Journalism or Communications degree on Buzzfeed figured out that those characters were only being pushed so hard because FOX no longer had the rights to the X-Men and needed SOME outcast band of characters to act as gay and race allegories just so they could have a #diversitywin!”
He walks around the poster, taking a better look at the buildings, most of them tall, built with some sort of metal and with almost no windows, the city looked more like a prison complex than anything. Walking around some more, amidst the debris and trash, Wade found smaller, flyer sized posters of the giant advertisement he saw earlier, old tickets from where fans could go see the first episode of Inhumans in theater, and promotional material from ABC.
This is what certified in Wade’s brain, that he wasn’t just in some alternate universe/version of Attilan, but he happened to be in the city that’s in the place things go to when they’re no longer needed or thought of, dead to those considered important enough to remember it, the Void.
‘FUUUUCCCCKKK!!!” Wade screams into the void (ha, literally) and kicks the nearest object, which happens to be a statue of Black Bolt’s actor, Anson Mount, and watches, blood boiling as the statue crumbles to the floor with a cloud of dust. “Stupid fucking Rizzo the Rat looking motherfucker sent me back to the void!”
Another thing that Wade learned in good old Sister Margaret’s Merc University is that a good mercenary always keeps a level head. Wade Wilson is not just any mercenary though, he is Deadpool and Deadpool isn’t known at all for keeping a leveled head. So, he lets the rage consume him, kicking and punching and shooting everything in sight.
A guttural “SON. OF. A. BITCH!!!” rips from his throat and he continues to tear down the dilapidated town around him.
“Woah, calm down Rated R Spiderman, who crapped in your cereal this morning?” A voice called from behind him, sass evident in its tone.
Offended someone’s decided to interrupt him during his temper tantrum he slowly turns around and asks incredulously, “I’m sorry, who the fuck are you supposed-“ before cutting himself off.
A teenage girl jumps down from the roof she was spying on him from, using some weird purple light platforms she’s summoning as stairs. He can get a better look at her once she’s down and slowly walking towards Wade, she has darker skin, black slightly wavy hair and is wearing a blue and red suit with a yellow lightning bolt running down her suit.
She sticks he hand out to him in a greeting and smiles, “I’m Miss Marvel, but if you play nicely, you can call me Kamala. Kamala Khan.”
“Oh, my sweet bag of Marvel cash, Miss Marvel? What in the fuck are you doing here? Making a cameo in my shit show of a Freaky Friday fan fiction-esque plot?”
Kamala tilts her head in confusion, “I-what-what do you mean Freaky Friday?”
“Look, I know you’re 16 but your generation HAS to still know about the movie Freaky Friday? I mean, it’s an iconic movie masterpiece, plus Disney remakes it every couple of years, did you know there’s a musical now?” He’s cut off by an overly dramatic sigh that for once wasn’t him.
“Ugh, I know what Freaky Friday is, Disney once did one of those weekend events where they premiered a bunch of episodes of their shows with the concept, actually now that I think about it, its was a very commonly used plot line back in the early 2000s…and I’m sorry did you say they made a musical?!”
Deadpool lights up, “I did, I haven’t seen it. But I’ve heard its dog water, though everyone’s a critic nowadays, so you never know whether to take things as actual criticism or if its just them being complaining for the sake of complaining.”
“Yea, I feel that, if reminds me of when-wait what were we talking about? We’ve gotten so off track, sorry, it tends to happen to me a lot…” Kamala smiles bashfully.
Wade just waves her off, “It’s all good queen, that’s just neurodivergency for ya, happens to us all. Besides, you were just explaining to me what you were doing here, you’ve got sacred timeline written all over you, you shouldn’t be here, in the void, Disney’s not getting rid of you that easily…”
“Ah-right, I forgot there’s people trapped here…I’m just visiting. I’m looking for someone…for a friend, thought she might be here but, I haven’t had any luck.” Kamala goes quiet, her eyes get sad and watery and suddenly she looks small, too small to be here alone and Wade is instantly reminded of Laura, the girl who grew up in the Void, had to learn to defend and fight for herself, and had somehow weaved her way intrinsically into Wade’s family.
He had a soft spot for kids, had always wanted one of his own, and while he hadn’t exactly gotten that, he has Russel who would occasionally visit whenever he was back from college and now he can add Laura to that list too. Laura, a bright young girl who looked up to Logan and for some unknowable reason, him like they hung the stars. He didn’t expect to be abruptly zapped out of his apartment today, sent to the Void only to meet and then comfort a child who’s lost someone important to her, but here he is. Well…there’s worse ways to spend his Tuesday.
“Hey, it’s okay, you’ll find them, the void is huge. I doubt you’ve looked everywhere.” Wade tries, slowly approaching her, mapping out his every action, and moves to gently pat her back. He notices they’re still in the rain and the last thing he needs is for this kid to get sick, so he guides her towards the nearest building that’s doors aren’t boarded closed and they walk inside.
You can just barely tell that this place used to be a café, several tables were turned over, the counters are dusty and there’s a strange odor coming from the kitchen area. They sit down at a table, one not turned over or covered in world ending graffiti and dust while Wade for once sits in silence, letting the young superhero take deep breaths to get her breathing and thoughts back under control.
Kamala sniffles quietly before quirking an eyebrow at something, suddenly perking up enough to look at Wade, “You sound like you know a lot about this place. How’d did you end up here?”
“Eh, I came home from a day of patrolling only to find a handsome Squidward levels of hot variant of myself in my house and before I could do anything, he zapped me here. I actually didn’t know that this part of the void existed, but I guess it makes sense, any location that hasn’t been used by Marvel in years could easily end up in this trash dump of a universe too.” Actually, the more Wade thought about this scenario, the weirder it got.
He rubs his hands together conspiratorially, “Okay, my turn to ask a question! How did you find out about the void? I know that you’ve had your fair share of time and space travel, but I don’t recall the void, or multiverses ever being brought up in your movie.”
Instead of asking the normal questions Wade would expect someone to ask like ‘How did you know that?’ or ‘What the fuck are you talking about? Multiverse? Timelines? Movies?’, Kamala just starts to smile awkwardly, and begins to fidget nervously with her hands, “It’s a little embarrassing but, it was all hopefull wishing really, I uh-okay this is going to sound really weird, or maybe not, because you’re Deadpool and you’re all about fourth-wall breaks but, in my world, on Earth 616, there’s a movie franchise about you, we don’t have an actual Deadpool there, but we have you as a franchise, its kinda like a spoof to the whole Superhero thing, anyways- the most recent movie that came out for you was Deadpool and Wolverine and in it, you guys visited the Void so I thought to myself, ‘Oh hey, the void is essentially just another universe, if I could travel there, Monica might be there and I can bring her home-I-I actually had no proof that the void would be real, or even if you were real. But since you’re here and you’re saying that you’ve been here before, and you know about the void…is the movie real? Did you really go through a multiverse saving journey with the Wolverine?!” Kamala rambles, getting more and more excited the more she goes on.
“Woah, that is either an incredibly smart or incredibly stupid idea, but I guess I can’t judge because I did travel the multiverse to kidnap a Wolverine to bring home with me so we could save my world’s timeline while holding hands and listening to Madona.” Wade admits.
“Eh, I think I just made an educated wish…” She replies quietly, a soft smile grows on her face.
Something in Wade’s heart shifts, like full one flips making him feel as if he was one of those lucky members who managed to flip the Club Penguin iceberg. “Heh…you’re gonna be alright, kid. Now, how about you use whatever magic that brought you here to get us out, and maybe I’ll even let you help me, and the Wolverine kick my variant’s butt.”
Kamala’s smile falters, and she gets nervous again. “Ha, actually. About that…I uh- don’t know how to get us back.”
Wade blinks blankly at her, brain not processing the information, “What did you say?”