Kids These Days (Are Fucking Batshit)
Dave isn't where you left him. That's a problem.
Well, it would be if D showed any surprise at all at the fact that his kids are missing. He doesn't even react at the absence of who you expected, just heads up the stairs without even looking back to make sure you're following.
(You are.)
The kids—yours, his, and two more that they've apparently picked up somewhere—are collectively splayed out on two beds pushed together. Dave's in the middle, lying on his back and blinking slowly through some kind of enhanced headphones with...cat ears. Okay. Neet's nestled on his chest, with all four of the other kids reaching over to pet her every few seconds. Dirk's stretched out face down on the bed, apparently fine with the fact that the taller girl's using his back to rest her head on as she watches whatever Hal's doing on his phone, on the other side of Dave.
The second, smaller girl is the only one who looks up when D opens the door. She's around Dave's height and probably about the same age, you decide when she sits up, right in that teenager goth phase that you fully support in any kid who goes through it. This one seems to have the art of black lipstick under control, though. No need to offer help there.
"Hello, Deadpool," she says through a surprisingly honest smile. "You've officially earned your money."
"C'mon, Rose." Dave sits up and pulls the headphones off, careful not to mess up the little screen that goes over one eye, and hands them off to the taller girl. "Be nice to him, maybe? Like, he's a good dude."
She sniffs and makes a face at that statement, crossing her arms. "Who's the psychoanalyst here, Dave?"
"So you actually got a license from that place that freaked out when they found out you were twelve?"
"...no."
"Then it's not you." Dave grins and scoops up Neet, transferring her to Rose's lap so he can get to his feet and step close enough to wave his hand in front of your face. "Wade? Hello? Yo, earth to Deadpool, you're making me kinda nervous here."
He says it like it's a joke, but it's really not. Dave shows tension in a couple ways that you've already got the hang of picking up; he really is worried at you shutting the fuck up. Which you totally understand, but at the same time you really can't help it because you're processing the fact that that girl, right there, the thirteen year old goth in black lipstick and purple jeans—that is Rose. As in Rose Lalonde. As in the Miss Lalonde who fucking hired you.
What the fuck. You were literally hired and paid for by teenagers. This job was entirely conceived of, planned by, and implemented by teenagers. None of these kids can legally drink, let alone hire a god damn assassin.
Wait, that'd be illegal anyway. Oh.
"Wade?" Dave asks again, actually touching your mask with just the tips of his fingers. He probably isn't about to try to pull it off, but your instant and automatic reaction is to take a step back. And bump into D.
Goddamnit.
"I'll be right back," you tell him, sidestepping the man's attempt to steady you. "Five minutes."
Ooh, wrong thing to say. The kid's eyes go wide and anxious and why does this keep happening. Why. "What the fuck you you mean, five minutes—"
"Okay, let me rephrase." Technically, you could make it outside and be unfollowed for at least a couple minutes—Dave's shed his coat somewhere, and there's no way D's going to let him outside in the snow without it—but that's really a dick move. "I'm going to go outside. I'm going to say some very bad words, maybe pile up some snow and stab it a couple times. Actually no, just lying on the ground and rethinking my life might be a better way to handle this."
"Dude, you're gonna fucking freeze to death."
"I don't actually work like that, don't worry."
"Why?" This is not a question about your specific internal workings; the look on Dave's face has absolutely nothing to do with curiosity. "What the fuck's going on—you promised you wouldn't ditch me, I—"
Oh, shit. Apparently he doesn't totally trust your word yet. Which makes sense. You're not one hundred percent trustworthy, by any sense of the word.
"Dave." When he focuses on you, instead of having his attention flicking from D to you to the other kids like he's trying to beg them to step in and fix this shit, you keep talking. "What do you want me to swear on that I'll be back in under ten minutes?"
"You said five before." That may or may not be a joke. You can't tell.
"Look, I just got outsmarted by four highschoolers, I need ten. I'm coming right back, I promise."
After a second, Dave nods. You're not totally sure that he really believes you, but that's going to have to be good enough.
Laying face down in nine inches of snow is vastly underrated. Even with a layer of leather and another layer of cloth between your skin and the tiny frozen water particles, you can't feel your face. You can't really feel anything, actually, and you're pretty sure that nobody can hear your ongoing string of fuck words and their relatives.
You're really not done with this, but after just long enough that melting snow is starting to soak past your technically-insufficient layers of clothes, someone starts poking your back. It starts out as a gentle patting, then a more insistent prodding.
When they switch from using hands to something much smaller and less yielding, you roll over. Might as well see who's considering stabbing you.
To no one's surprise, it's the twins. Dirk and Hal are standing over you, the former holding one of your katanas (which should be locked safely in the car) and the latter grinning like he's never been prouder of himself. The only positive point here is that the blade's still safely sheathed.
That, and that they both took the time to pull on coats before they came out here. That's a positive point too.
Okay, now is not the time to get protective over someone else's kids. Especially since those kids have a weapon.
"Do it, I dare you." It's difficult to make yourself seem more vulnerable when you're already on your back in a growing puddle of slowly melting snow, but you make the effort by spreading your arms, pretty much inviting Dirk to skewer you wherever he wants. "It'll be completely useless, but you can tell yourself you made an effort to get rid of the big bad assassin, right? Warned him off your precious, innocent cousin? Brother? Whatever the fuck?"
"Dirk, give me the sword so I can take him up on that," Hal suggests. Dirk just shakes his head and dodges his brother's attempt to get ahold of the weapon, hopping over you to end up in the non-shoveled snow.
The look on his face when he ends up knee-deep in the stuff is hilarious. Hey, the katana is within your reach and he's distracted; should you go for it?
Nah.
Not that your decision matters, because a second later Dirk just drops the sword on your chest, still sheathed. Huh.
"Yeah, we're not out here to put holes in you." Hal crouches down next to you, reaching over to brush snow off your mask. "You are still conscious, right? It's hard to tell right now, what with the mask and the attempt to freeze yourself."
"Excuse you, I'm attempting to not teach you kids new swear words." He can't see you roll your eyes; you do it anyway. Then you move the sword off your chest and sit up. "Why are you out here, exactly?"
Hal and Dirk exchange a look that says a hell of a lot more than you can pick up on. Dirk's the one who answers. "Keeping an eye on you."
"Ooh, so you don't want me slipping off?" Not that you would. You promised Dave. "I would've thought you two would be ready to get rid of me—"
"Dave's not." Dirk crosses his arms for a second, then rethinks that move and uncrosses them, offering you a hand up instead. "He needs you, it's been ten minutes, you can get up and help us carry his things in now."
"You can always come back out and put yourself on ice again after you take at least one bag in," Hal adds, rising to his feet as you take his brother's hand and let yourself be pulled up. Damn, Dirk's strong. "We're more than capable of covering for you."
"Oh, I believe it. But I think I'll pass." Might as well stick close to Dave just in case, right?
That's a good decision, because it's very obvious that Dave wants to keep you in sight, once you come back in the house. It's subtle—you're not even sure that he knows that he's moving to stay between you and the door out of the room that both the twins and the two girls immediately and consistently refer to as his—but you can see it. Maybe Dirk and Hal do too, because they don't say anything about bringing in the rest of Dave's stuff from the car.
Even with the things you bought coming up here, it only takes them two trips. Ouch.
D ends up talking Hal into taking Roxy and Rose home—which apparently has more to do with mutant powers than anything expected; you don't know why that's mildly surprising to you—which leaves you and Dirk to help Dave unpack his stuff and stash it away. Dirk takes one look at your attempt to fold a shirt and instantly takes the bag of clothes away from you.
Understandable!
Anyway, you flop down on the bed and watch Dirk's method of folding to see exactly where you went wrong. The answer seems to be "everywhere." At least Neet still loves you enough to use you as a perch.
She's the one who tips you off that Dave needs someone to step in, actually. You'd rather that she didn't do it with a harsh caw and a hard peck to the hand you're using to stroke her feathers, but hey, nothing's perfect.
Dirk looks over at Dave at the same moment you do; as you sit up and nudge the crow off you, he steps over almost fast enough to make you wonder if he's ended up with something like his uncle's abilities. Dave doesn't move at all as Dirk dips his hand into the bag and comes out with that goddamn suppression collar that you forgot you stashed in there, doesn't even react until Dirk pushes him a step back and slips in between him and the bag, looping the collar around his wrist and putting both hands on Dave's shoulders.
"Dave. Hey."
"I'm fine."
"I didn't ask yet, bro. I'm pretty sure I don't need to—you're so lying." Dirk takes one hand off Dave's shoulder, shaking the collar around his wrist. "This is the one he put on you?"
Shit. Dave flinches at that question. He nods, though, and that movement doesn't seem faster than it should be. "...yeah. That's it."
"Do you me to get rid of it?"
You really don't want him to get rid of it, but Dave's already nodding again, and it's not like you're going to go against that. (Not while you're in the same room as him, at least.) Instead, you wait for Dirk to nod and step away, then scoop the crow up and hand her over to Dave before following Dirk out into the hall.
He's literally right outside the door; when you step through it he pulls it shut, holding the collar up. "Are you about to tell me to hand this over, or else?"
"Actually I was going to say please, but yeah, you get the idea."
"No."
"Come on, it's not like I'm going to slap it back on anybody—" Well, maybe in self defense. Those things are amazing for dissuading a certain kind of person from trying to kill you.
Dirk shakes his head and takes a step back, looking down at the loop of metal in his hands. "No. We don't have one like this yet; I'll give you one of the ones the CoH uses."
What.
"...why do you have a Church of Humanity suppression collar, exactly?" There's a couple explanations that you can think of—those bigoted idiots having approached D seems almost likely, but then again he wouldn't have actually taken them up on the offer they make to around eighty percent of parents of mutant children, and they probably already hate him for other reasons.
"Because."
"Not good enough, kid."
Dirk hesitates, spinning the collar on one finger as he thinks this through. After a couple seconds he shrugs, his free hand coming up to adjust those dangerous-looking shades. "Are you still on our payroll?"
"Maybe? I mean, if you're offering to buy my silence I think you need to rethink your tactics. I'm never silent. About literally anything."
He actually smiles at that one, a small, almost unconscious expression. "Just don't tell D."
"Hoo boy, I feel like you're about to tell me something that I absolutely need to tell your dad. Who'd you kill?"
"Bro, obviously." That comes out in an impressive deadpan, and he keeps the same tone for the next sentence. "But we've faked six deaths, three kidnappings, and one marriage."
That was definitely not at all what you expected. "You've done what now?"
"Look, it's the easiest way to make sure the people we take collars off don't just get a new one put on them as soon as they go home. If they don't exist, they don't have to go home."
"What?" What the fuck? "You're saying you, the thirteen year old—"
"Fourteen."
"Whatever! You're singlehandedly responsible for making forcefully collared mutants disappear? As in, plural mutants. More than ten."
Again, you get that tiny flash of a smile. "Way more than ten. Not singlehandedly, though."
"Oh, good."
"Hal and the Lalondes are in on it."
"Oh my god." Are all kids like this? Please, please let all kids not be like this. Please let this one be an outlier. You're starting to think you need to be intimidated by anyone under eighteen.
"Some other friends too."
"More teenagers?"
"More teenagers." Yeah, you need to be intimidated.
"Oh my fucking god." You sublimate the urge to bang your head against the wall until you make a perfectly Wade-shaped hole, and lower one finger at the kid who's still spinning a fucking suppression collar on one finger like it's some kind of fidget toy. Shit, his fingers are actually sparking. Cool. "You're not doing any more of that—"
"Fuck you."
"—without getting my number for backup."
"Wait. What?" There you go, you got him to stop playing with the damn thing.
"You heard me. Somebody has to be the responsible adult around here." Did you just call yourself a responsible adult? Yes. Yes you did.
You wait a minute to see if lightning is really going to strike from nowhere and fry you where you stand. When it doesn't, you shrug and turn away to open Dave's door again, leaving Dirk standing outside in the hall as you step inside to finish helping unpack.