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late-to-the-party-81 · 4 months

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Finders Keepers - Chapter Four

AN: How are we enjoying it so far? Feel free to inbox me or screech in a reblog/tags. Any predictions? Anyway, welcome to Chapter 4. Everything that happens here was supposed to just be the first half of the chapter, but it ran away with me, so I’ve identified an extra prompt and upped the chapter count of this story by one. This unbeta'd chapter is from Bucky’s POV.

Likes are loved, reblogs are golden.

Dividers by @firefly-graphics and moodboard by me.

Bingo Fills - @buckybarnesbingo Square C1 - Hydra

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Chapter Three

Relationship: Bucky Barnes x Female Reader

Chapter word count: 3.8k

Chapter CW: Bucky Barnes POV, angst, protective PepperRhony, hand-wavy sci-fi and computer stuff, canon typical violence, Hydra, feels.

Chapter 4 - The sins in my wake

In Potts’ Diner

Bucky schooled his features as you glared furiously and hurled your meagre stash of credits at him. Did he feel like the world’s biggest douchebag? Yes. Would he do it all the same if he had to do it again? Probably. Because no matter how frustrating you were, how much of a thorn in his side you were being, the truth was that it would be too easy to let you in. You were clever and funny. Resourceful and focused. And far too good for this life. If he didn’t make it hard for you, you’d fall even further in and he knew from personal, painful experience that no good came from going down that road.

You spun on your heel and stormed out, and Bucky watched you go. It was only when the door closed shut behind you that he moved, using his feet to nudge the credits on the floor into a pile and then retrieving them. He stacked them up on the table and then stood, only to find the three owners of the diner staring at him, scowls plastered on their faces. The hostess - tall and willowy, with strawberry blonde hair - stepped forwards, arms folded defensively across her chest. Her two husbands - the shorter server with sharply trimmed facial hair, and the tall, serious looking cook - crowded at her back.

“I don’t know what game you are playing with our girl,” she cautioned him, “but it stops now.”

“I fail to see how this is any of your business,” Bucky growled back and tried to shove past them. The cook stopped him with a firm hand to his shoulder.

“It’s our business because we say it is,” he replied, firmly. “That girl is like family to us. And we don’t let people hurt our family.”

Bucky didn’t even hide his eye roll. “Really? The shovel talk? You know who I am, right?”

The server, whose badge announced that his name was Tony, stepped into Bucky’s personal space and jabbed a finger into his chest. “Of course we know who you are, wiseguy. It’s only because of your normal, sparkling reputation, that we haven’t thrown you out yet. But this is your one warning. Leave her alone. She’s had it tough and doesn’t deserve to be treated like shit by you.”

Bucky wanted to retort that you weren’t the only one who’d had it difficult, but in the end all he said was “I know,” then he pushed past the trio and out into the mid-morning light. All your credits, more than were needed for the check, sat on the booth table.

Bucky still remembered the first time he met you. Although he hadn’t shown it at the time, he’d been impressed with how you’d managed to get past his forcefield. In fact he’d only noticed your presence by chance. If he’d been at one of his other sites he’d have been none the wiser to your invasion. Yes, he’d been irritated by the fact you were there, but that was more with himself for obviously not having adequate security, but the rest of his attitude? Well that was all down to a more visceral reaction to you. Because you were just so god-damn open and earnest, and he’d known what you were going to say as soon as you opened your mouth.

But Bucky Barnes didn’t do partnerships. He’d been burnt by that before and he just couldn’t risk it all going wrong, especially with someone as sweet and innocent as you seemed to be. And, in any case, you shouldn’t be down here, with the likes of him. You should be living higher up, in one of the towers, zipping around in a personal transport vehicle above the mist.

Any hope that he’d harboured after that first meeting that you’d just back off was short lived, because two days later you were back, practically sniffing out the edge of his territory, slow and cautious. His sensors and alarms tipped him off to your presence and he went up to one of his favourite high spots to observe you. You’d then impressed him once more by somehow sensing his gaze, working out where he was and then giving him a mock salute before turning back the way you’d come.

Over the next few days you’d worked out the size and shape of the area he claimed, and each time you also identified where he was observing you from. Again, Bucky hoped this would be the end of your curiosity, but it wasn’t. You were testing him, and away from prying eyes he couldn’t help but smile and be amused by your antics. The truth was that sometimes you were actually getting in and out without him noticing - he’d only realise later when he reviewed his sensor logs and saw the discrepancies.

Part of him knew he should stop you for your own good, but then he’d imagine the satisfied grin on your face when you’d thought you’d gotten away with it, and it made a part of him, long thought dead, warm. Maybe you would be okay? Maybe this life wouldn’t grind you down, chew you up and spit you out? Maybe one day he would be brave enough to let you in?

Then the rumours started - rumours of Hydra’s return to this part of the city.

After the botched grav-train robbery that had left a guard dead and Bucky mutilated, Pierce had ordered Brock and his goons to withdraw and focus somewhere else. Too much attention had been drawn by the discovery of the still warm corpse at the next station. Luckily Bucky’s accident hadn’t been linked to it - he’d just seemed to be the victim of an unfortunate accident and the city security hadn’t questioned him too much. He’d been found by some passers-by and Bucky himself had been hazy on the details when interviewed at the hospital. He’d been on his own after that. Ma had passed away a year before his accident and then, because he wasn’t able to look after them while recovering himself, Becca and Ruthie had gone to live with an Aunt and Uncle upstate. He hadn’t seen them since, although he did send money. They were better off without him.

It was only with the clarity that came with a near-death experience that Bucky realised how bad things had gotten with Hydra, and how deep he’d gone with it. At the beginning, as a lost boy on the cusp of manhood, the gang had seemed like the answer to all his problems. Mr Pierce had acted like a kindly uncle, praising him and ruffling his hair whenever he achieved whatever task had been set for him. Brock, Jack and the others had seemed like brothers and cousins. It was all so exciting. But as the years went by the jobs got harder and less ethical, and there were physical reprimands for failure. Brock displayed a cruel, capricious streak, taking pleasure in meting out punishments, but by then Bucky thought it was just normal. He hadn’t signed on for murder, though, and while he wished he hadn’t lost his arm, he’d never regret getting himself out of that situation.

His recovery had been slow but he was able to use money he’d originally squirrelled away for Becca and Ruthie to pay towards his prosthetic. However, he’d still been in a mountain of debt and had started off doing odd jobs like fixing electronics just to make ends meet. Fixing items soon evolved into finding items, and it wasn’t long before he’d built up a reputation for being fast and fair. As bad as Hydra had been, being with them had given Bucky some valuable skills, and it seemed only right that he make use of them now to help not only himself but the local community.

He was a self-made man now and if the Hydra gang thought they could waltz back in and pick up where they’d left off six years ago they had another thing coming. However, he was mostly worried about you. You were still in the game and there was no way he wanted you to fall prey to Hydra’s clutches. He had no doubt that they’d approach you and try to pull you in. He also thought that you’d probably tell them to go to hell, but the problem was that he also knew that they wouldn’t take no for an answer. There was nothing else for it - he’d have to force you out and fast. No more mister nice guy.

He sighed as he walked away from the diner and headed back home. He’d known you’d been lying yesterday about not finding what you’d been after, and it hadn’t been hard to track you this morning when you went to deliver the PADD. He hadn’t even had to really follow you. Having identified where you lived early on, Bucky knew you’d come back after you’d made your delivery and probably celebrate with a proper meal - it was exactly what he did. All he had to do was wait by the closest diner to your apartment block. Hopefully now you’d get the message - back away from Finding and start over in another line of work that wouldn’t attract Hydra’s notice. You’d be safe and Bucky wouldn’t be distracted while trying to run Hydra out of town.

It was that plan he started to work on as he neared his home. He needed to check his sensors and vid-feeds, and then talk to some associates about any sightings of Brock and his boys. He unlocked his door with his thumb print and shucked his leather jacket, letting it drop onto the scruffy easy chair in his main living space before making his way over to a wall of monitors and consoles. He’d programmed his computer to search for sightings of Hydra symbols in the city camera system and there had only been a few over the last couple of weeks.

There were several today.

With a rush of anxiety, Bucky’s fingers flew over the main console, bringing up the sightings on a map. His heart sank into the pit of his stomach. They were all on your side of the city, and in fact the one with the most recent timestamp was just around the corner from the diner, on one of the routes towards the apartment building where you lived. That couldn’t be a coincidence.

He spent the next several hours working through the code and finding his way through the firewalls to get access to the full camera network. Once he was in he had to find the right feeds, a task that was far more arduous than he’d anticipated and his jaw ached from clenching it while he worked. Finally though, he found what he was looking for - the camera that cross-referenced with his own sensor readings - and he downloaded part of the recorded feed. Turning to another monitor he started to watch it and his blood ran cold at what he saw. As he’d thought, you hadn’t joined them. He’d anticipated that upon your refusal that Brock would just kill you, but he didn’t. They stunned you and took you instead. Maybe they had hopes of ‘persuading’ you. Maybe, and that thought turned Bucky’s stomach, they were just going to play with you. Either way, you were still alive and if Bucky had anything to say in the matter, you’d remain that way. However, he had to find you first.

Bucky went back over the last few weeks of sensor readings, and started a correlation algorithm. It was strange that there were no sightings after you’d been taken. Using the camera system he managed to follow Brock and the others for a few blocks, but then he lost them, and no other camera’s picked up the symbols on their jackets. They’d gone from subtle to obvious and then back again and he couldn’t work out why. It was as though they knew they were being tracked and were taking steps to hide their movements apart from when they were taking you. What could they possibly gain…

His thoughts suddenly crashed to a halt, piling up one behind the other as realisation washed over him. They wanted whoever was watching to know they had you.

You were the bait.

For the watcher.

For him!

They wanted Bucky to come find them. If that was the case though, there had be clues as to where they were actually hiding out.

The computer chirped, signalling that the algorithm had finished analysing all the sightings. Bucky looked over the results, and smiled slyly. He knew where they were. He knew where you were. He ran his eyes back over the information to be certain and then pushed his chair back harshly, standing up. He grabbed his jacket again and then a pair of stunners, checking they were both at full charge and then set off. There was no time to lose.

Bucky walked briskly. It would take him about an hour to get to the warehouse he’d identified as Hydra’s current HQ and Brock had had hold of you for far too long now. He dreaded to think what might have been done to you and his left hand whirred as it tightened into a fist. He might only have brought stunners with him, but he was willing to take more permanent action if required. The sky darkened as he walked, and he was thankful for the cover that it would give him.

As he made his approach, Bucky slowed down. First he had to walk around the outside of the building and work out the best way of getting in. He’d need to act swiftly when he did get inside - neutralise the threats and get you out safely - so being cautious now would pay off in the end. Bucky spent another thirty minutes reconnoitring the warehouse and by the end of it had a good idea of the layout. At one end of it there were lights on in a few small offices and Bucky could hear low, deep voices coming from inside. The other end of the building was dark, but he could hear the low hum of an active forcefield. That was probably where you were, but it was also the part of the building furthest from any entrance. Off to the side was the main warehouse area, but it didn’t appear to be in use.

Having circled the building and identified there was only one viable entrance Bucky realised he had no choice - he’d have to go into the area where Brock and his boys were, take them out and then find you. He worked his way back around and positioned himself in the shadows to the side of the door.

There was a camera above it, the red power light blinking regularly. Bucky knew that if he tried getting in with brute force, he’d be spotted easily and lose the element of surprise. Therefore he’d just have to wait.

He hated waiting.

Time passed in a haze as Bucky stayed pressed against the side of the building. The only sound was the background hum of the city and the only illumination was the glow of thousands of neon lights reflecting off the clouds and the light streaming from the two warehouse windows. Eventually the door slid open and one of the Hydra thugs stepped out, heading straight towards the city. Probably to go and get food, Bucky thought. He acted fast though, moving silently and swiftly from his place to slip in through the open door before it slid closed again. He sighed with relief when he saw the unmanned surveillance station, and crossed to it quickly. There were only two camera feeds active - the one above the door he’d just come through and one that was pointing at a cell. There you were, kneeling as close to the forcefield as you could get, switching your gaze between the dimly lit corridor and the camera itself, as if you were trying to work out how well you were being watched. With the press of a button he cut the camera. If you were watching that closely hopefully you’d know something was happening - that you’d know he was here and coming to get you. Now it was time to deal with his former gang.

It wasn’t hard to find his quarries. Light spilled out of two rooms, offset on opposite sides of the corridor from each other. Bucky stopped outside the first, and listened. He identified at least three voices coming from inside, one that he recognised and two that he didn’t. None of them were either Brock or his second in command, Jack. They must be in the other room, but he wouldn’t be able to get past this one without being seen. He’d just have to deal with it. Bucky un-holstered both stunners, took a deep breath, and then jumped through the doorway.

There were five occupants in the room. Two went down before they even knew what was happening. As the other three turned and stood, Bucky dove across the room to take cover behind a desk, knowing that the stunners’ whine would have attracted the attention of whoever was in the room on the other side of the hallway. Chairs and tables were upturned as Bucky’s immediate adversaries made their own cover. A different pitched whine sounded and a scorch mark appeared on the wall above his head. A phase pistol and it probably wasn’t set to a low setting either. He’d have to make every shot count.

Another deep breath and Bucky stood, aiming in the direction the phase pistol shot had come from. He hit his mark but saw another goon take aim from the corner of his eye. He twisted his body and the pistol shot glanced off his left arm. There was some feedback through the prosthetic which stung, but luckily didn’t actually do him any harm - there had to be some upside to having a metal arm after all. He turned back and hit the shooter, centre mass, on the highest stun setting and the guy went down.

“Barnes!” A voice roared from the doorway and Bucky hit the deck, curling up behind his inadequate cover as shots littered the wall behind him. Rumlow had entered the fray and he obviously wasn’t happy.

“Not glad to see me, Brock?” he called out.

“You’re the one who came in here, all guns blazing. Doesn’t seem like you want to talk,” came the gruff reply, although the pistol fire came to an unexpected halt.

“What’s a little stunner fire between friends?” Bucky snarked back, all the while listening for any movements that might help him identify how many people were left standing and where they were.

Rumlow snorted. “We ain’t using stunners.”

“So I gathered.” There was barely a heartbeat between Bucky answering and standing back up, stunning the last of his original opponents, satisfying himself that only Rumow and Rollins remained and then ducking back down to avoid the expected hail of return fire.

“The problem with stunners, though,” Rumlow drawled as he carefully stepped forwards, “is that they run out of charge mighty quick, especially on their highest setting.”

Bucky waited in a crouch behind the desk, muscles poised, because Rumlow was right. His stunners were out of power and now all he had were his wits and his fists. However, Rumlow was also predictable and as soon as his shadow started to loom over Bucky’s cover, Bucky shot up, knocking Rumlow’s right arm, and therefore the pistol, to the side with his own left arm and then punching Rumlow directly on the nose with his right.

Rumlow staggered back, momentarily blinded and Bucky vaulted over the desk, taking advantage of Rollin’s own disorientation to crack him across the jaw with a metallic left hook. Rollin’s head snapped back and his eyes rolled. He was unconscious before he even hit the floor. Dazed, Rumlow shook his head, droplets of blood splattering over the floor from his broken nose and he dropped his pistol before raising his hands and gesturing for Bucky to come at him.

“You wanna be the big man, Barnes? Let’s see what you’ve got.”

Bucky cracked his neck to the side and then circled his left arm to re-calibrate it. The servos whirred and he couldn’t help but grin at the slight flash of concern that passed over Rumlow’s features.

“Worried, Brock? You’re the reason I have this arm, so you only have yourself to blame.” Bucky surged forwards, jabbing out towards Rumlow’s bloody face with his right fist, but his former friend just blocked it. However, in doing so, his body was left exposed and a reverse jab to his ribs left the big man winded.

“That train guard didn’t have to die,” Bucky bit out, realising that this was the first time since the accident that he’d seen Rumlow to confront him over what had happened.

His former friend wheezed at him through a bloodied grin. “He was in the way. And people in the way are always disposable. Just like your girl. Let me tell you, she’s a feisty one. You know how to pick ‘em. Cries so prettily as well.”

Bucky knew that Rumlow was trying to goad him, get him riled up so that he made a mistake, but he couldn’t stop the veil of rage that settled over him as he heard the man speak about you. He didn’t know yet what had been done to you, or what state he’d find you in. His feelings must have been writ large over his face because the smug bastard couldn’t resist taunting him further.

“She seemed to think that you didn’t actually care for her, but I knew she was wrong. You wouldn’t be here otherwise. What have you been doing with her? Staying away out of some tortured sense of nobility?” He spat a mix of blood and saliva onto the floor. “You’re too soft, Barnes. You gotta take what you want in this life and damn whoever gets in your way. You’d still have two proper arms if you’d just accepted that sometimes there’s collateral damage.”

“Brock? Shut the hell up.” Bucky renewed his attack and the two men fought savagely. Rumlow was older and more experienced, and Bucky wasn’t able to block every blow - including one that glanced off his right cheek bone and made him see stars - but Bucky had years of repressed rage and a prosthetic on his side. Thinking back later, it was as though he entered some kind of fugue state, where he was acting purely on basic instinct, but when the world suddenly became clear again he realised he was straddling Rumlow’s unconscious body, beating his face bloody.

Bucky pushed himself away and up in disgust. The man was barely breathing, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care. He had to find you and get out of here. The first guys he’d stunned would be coming round soon and the one who’d left might return any moment, and he didn’t really want to go hand to hand again if he could avoid it.

Exiting the office, he turned down the corridor that would lead to the forcefielded room at the other end. As he jogged down it, he could hear movement, but he couldn’t place it. It wasn’t the regular sound of someone walking or running, but more like an irregular stomp. Then he rounded a corner and saw you, clinging to the wall and hopping as fast as you could. He didn’t know how you were out of your cell - the hum of the operational forcefield still filled the air - but somehow you were. He sped up, desperate to get to you but could only watch as you lost your balance and tumbled to the floor. Desperate sobs reached his ears, and Bucky swore his heart ached from the sound.

“We’ve gotta stop meeting like this, doll,” he said softly. “I’m getting a sense of deja vu.”

You turned on the floor and when Bucky saw the relief flood your features he couldn’t help but fall to the floor and pull you into his arms. You fitted as though you’d been made to be there. When your quiet voice wavered out a stunned “You came for me?” Bucky felt something inside his chest crack open. He pulled you in, just a little bit tighter, and whispered into your hair “Always, doll. I’ll always come for you.”

Chapter five

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#bucky barnes #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes x you #buckybarnesbingo2023

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andrewmoocow · 4 years

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Steven Universe: The Fantastic Mutants chapter 4: The Deadpool and Peridot Show (originally posted on August 29, 2020)

AN: Welcome back to The Fantastic Mutants everyone. This is a very special chapter because here I have a co-writer, whether I like it or not.

Surprise everyone, it's me Deadpool! Since this kid refuses to get his writing done quickly, I've taken it upon myself to "help" him out since no one can understand me better than me. Now then, back to my cohost here.

Yes, Deadpool of all people has decided to help me. Though I'd rather do all of this myself without any distractions.

Kinda like how this author's note is distracting us from the actual main event! Now let's just get this rolling already!

We begin on a talk show set in a blank white space, inhabited solely by a drop-dead handsome mercenary dressed in a beautiful shade of red with hints of black that was currently tearing it apart for no good reason. You know him, you love him, it's the sexiest anti-hero to have ever graced this dying industry, Deadpool.

"Thank you, thank you all!" yours truly bowed for an unseen audience as he finished tearing the set apart. "Now if all y'all have been lying under a rock since like, I don't know, '91, I am known as Wade Winston Wilson. I was created by Rob Liefeld and Fabian Niecieza for The New Mutants #98 in February 199-"

"Wade, I believe everyone knows who you are already." My white thinky-box, represented by a bold underline, cut me off. "You're already an Internet legend and of course, there's Ryan Reynolds."

"Can we just can the prologue already?" my yellow thinky-box, also represented by underlining but this time it was in italics. "There's gotta be people coming here solely for us who don't know what's going on."

"Okay wiseguys, you asked for it." the man who looked like a cross between Ryan Reynolds and a Shar-Pei underneath that creepily adorable mask replied. "So in case you guys are just joining us, this is a crossover with the modern classic with some of the most psycho fans in the Internet, Steven Universe." I explained. "Last chapter, our smol sunshine baby of a protagonist was kidnapped by the Master of Magnetism Magneto for some most likely evil science experiment by our favorite evil dictator with a superiority complex to compliment his tiny dick, Doctor Doom. In response, the Crystal Gems have decided that they need more hands on deck, and more characters than this story already needs."

"What does he want this to be, the DC Extended Universe?"

"I'd watch that mouth if I were you buddy." I called the dialogue box out. "Our author here has had experiences with those fans. If that Englishman can think he's free to call MCU fans Marvel Zombies, than he's free to have his own opinion. But someone that fanatical deserves to be called something similar, like a DCheep! Get it, because he's a sheep!"

"Can we please move on? This recap has already taken up two pages and I got real-life things to do." The author begged Wade.

"Okay, okay! Let's get this started already, keep your pants on!" the masked macho-man declared, marching off stage in an alluring fashion. "Cue scenery!"

Not too far from Westchester County, there was a shitty apartment where dwelled the hideously scarred human mutate, Wade Wilson. He was out like a light after the badass battle to the death he totally had last night, no joke. Not even a chimichanga could wake him up, and he didn't care that much for them. Yeah, no joke.

"Come on you sack 'a crap, wake up!" his blind, black, elderly roommate Blind Al groaned while fishing Wade out of bed with a snow shovel. "How much off-screen carnage puts you this much to sleep?"

"Enough for readers to get a glimpse of what I do in my spare time." Deadpool declared as he woke up, looking like he had a fantastic night's sleep. "Morning Al, off to do a crossover, see ya later!" he hurriedly greeted the old woman before leaving his room.

"Should I tell him he's not wearing pants?" Al muttered to herself. "Naw, he'll figure it out himself."

And figure it out he did. Immediately after that scene, Deadpool was wandering around the street fully clothed and ready to get this chapter over with.

"So, can we have our co-stars please show themselves?"

The author complied by dropping Connie, Peridot, Lapis Lazuli, Bismuth and Nephrite into the scene. "Wait, how did we get here?" Peridot wondered aloud. "And who are you?"

"Ooh, I get to hang with everyone's favorite character!" Deadpool cheered. "I've been writing up jokes about the fans I've been wanting to say for quite a while." He added to the readers while searching his hammerspace for cue cards. "Let me see, Molotov cocktail, big-ass cartoon bomb, reminder to sue Marvel & Capcom for leaving me out of Infinite, God knows how many machine guns."

"Uh, while you're looking for whatever it is you want, let me introduce myself." Connie introduced herself. "My name is Connie, pleased to meet you."

"Hey, can you put your cue-card search on hold and say hi to the kid?"

"Ah, here they are!" Deadpool declared as he fished a series of flashcards from seemingly his butt. "Been wanting to do this for ages." He said before clearing his throat, and he began to read off of them.

"Here are some complaints I have heard about Steven Universe. Complaint #1: literally no one can stay on-model because storyboarding is the devil. Complaint #2: Rebecca Sugar is a total butchphobic abuse supporter because she treats Jasper like crap and lets Lapis off the hook despite the fact that she's even worse."

"Please note that these are clearly not the opinions of the author. He's just been around Tumblr a lot and knows just how these so-called 'fans' think."

"Who said that?" Bismuth wondered aloud. "Oh hey, Bismuth!" Wade exclaimed as he just took notice of her. "That reminds me, Complaint #3: Making Bismuth an antagonist in any way, shape or form is racist because all minorities are pretty little angels than must be defended at all costs despite the facts that we're all human beings who have the potential to be complete balls to the wall sociopathic!"

"Okay, now you're just being used as a mouthpiece for the author. Hey buddy, can you stop him by introducing your version of the X-Force?!"

As a way to shut him up, the writer dropped the X-Force into the current scene on top of Deadpool. Their members, aside from Wilson, consisted of big names like Cable, Domino, Bob & Psylocke, to those who are only familiar to movie-watchers like Copycat, Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Yukio, Bedlam & Shatterstar, and even Outlaw & Fantomex!

"How did we get here?" Cable asked the other black-ops mutants as he got up. "Oh hey Natey, knew you'd come along sooner or later!" Wade greeted his cybernetic compadre. "I was just getting myself introduced to these characters that we'll be paired up with for this crossover."

"Hi, I'm Bob, Wade's best friend!" the HYDRA agent Bob cheerfully introduced himself. "Name's Domino." Neena Thurman responded.

"A pleasure to meet you, dearest jeune fille bleue." Fantomex greeted Lapis in a gentlemanly fashion. "You may call me Fantomex. "

"Charmed." Lapis replied.

"Wow, everyone wants Lapis! First Fandral, and now Fanto."

"Can you blame her? She's the writer's fave and top SU waifu! Favoritism much?"

"Name's Negasonic Teenage Warhead." Ellie Phimster introduced herself. "This here is Yukio." She added gesturing to a Japanese girl with pink hair and a big smile. "Hi there!"

"I'm Wade's girlfriend Vanessa, though a lot of people call me Copycat since that's my power." Vanessa stated. "Yeah, totally original."

"Call me Bedlam." Bedlam stated. "And this here is Shatterstar. Unlike the rest of us, he's an alien from the Mojoverse."

"And finally, these are Outlaw and Psylocke." Shatterstar gestured to the cowgirl and the ninja in the one piece. "Nice to meet ya." Inez Temple greeted. "Indeed." Betsy Braddock added.

"So, what brings you to my neck of the woods?" Deadpool asked Connie. "Don't give too much away, cause I already got a basic knowledge of what happened last chapter."

"Chapter?" Connie tilted her head in confusion. "Steven was kidnapped only an hour ago! What do you think this is, some kind of story?"

"You'd be surprised Girl-Who-Wasn't-Actually-Dressed-As-Gohan-In-That-One-Episode." The Merc with a Mouth grinned underneath his mask. Before anyone could move on however, a stereotypical overweight nerd who looks like he doesn't get out much wheeled in on an automated scooter with a plate of brownies in front of him. "And you are?"

"I am simply an SU Critical that wants to congratulate you for making my voice heard." The nerd congratulated Deadpool. "As a way of saying thanks, have some brownies."

"I get it! Deadpool won some brownie points!"

"Don't explain the joke dumbass. The punchline should be coming up now."

As Wade snacked on the brownies, he came to realize something was wrong with them. "Hey wait a second. Yo, stereotype! Why do these brownies taste like literal dogshit?!"

"That's my secret ingredient!" the nerd revealed, much to Wade's disgust and he angrily tossed the brownies on the ground. "It's to symbolize how I believe Steven Universe has gone bad ever since the barn arc ended since absolutely nothing can compare to the amazing character development Peridot got!"

"Oh, it's so nice to see someone notice my splendidness!" Peridot blushed as she felt humbled by the nerd. "Of course, then they had to devolve her into a mindless comic relief who only-"

"WHO ARE YOU CALLING MINDLESS COMIC RELIEF YOU CLOD?!" the small Gem shrieked furiously before she pounced on the basement dweller and began choking him. "I'll teach you to talk back to me immediately after giving my praises you hypocrite!"

As Peridot continued assaulting the nerd, everyone else watched in either shock, bemusement or in Deadpool's case, pride. "I think I want to be her new bestest friend already."

"But I thought we were friends!" Bob weeped sadly while Bedlam gave him a comforting pat on the head.

"And now it's time for a cutaway gag!"

"Cutaway gags? You gotta be kidding me, we're not Family Guy!"

"Just let the writer do his thing man, it's his imagination!"

"Come on Willy, I know you can do it!" a child version of Deadpool called to a whale in a scene that is clearly a reference to a certain all-time classic "Boy and his non-human friend" story. However just as Willy finally leaped over the rock Wade was standing on, he was immediately harpooned in midair and dragged towards a pirate ship manned by Captain Ahab. "Hey, wrong whale story Habbo Hotel!"

"After so many years of searching, that accursed whale is now mine to profit off!" Ahab and his crew celebrated their capture. "I'm talking sequels and an animated series to start, but the sky's the limit!"

"This ain't the last you'll see of me Old Thunder!" Wade cursed the sea captain as he made off with his prize. "I'll bring that whale home, just you wait!"

"Okay, that's a pretty unique idea for a gag. But seriously, back to the show."

"So, we're here because Magneto has kidnapped Steven with a bunch of Sentinels." Connie recapped to Deadpool while they were out and about in the city. "Now that you know what we're doing, can you tell us what you do?"

"I'm glad you asked Connie." Deadpool declared. "Allow me to explain the only way you Steven Universe characters probably know how. IN SONG!"

"Wait, a musical number, in a fanfiction?! Seriously?!"

"Hey shut it, this is gonna be good!"

"Lights please." Wade announced, shutting off the lights with a snap of his fingers, and turning them back on with another snap. He was now dressed as an Elvis impersonator with Cable, Domino, Bob and Copycat as his band. "What song do you plan on playing?" Vanessa asked her boyfriend.

"Just watch and listen." Wade responded, and began playing a parody of a classic movie song. "Here I go!" he started singing while Cable provided backup on the drums. "Woo! Ah-ha, ah-ha, let me show you what I work with!"

"Well Gambit was in league with a bunch of thieves, Cyclops has almost two thousand tales!" For his first act of insanity, the Regenerating Degenerate made about fifty longboxes filled with comics appear for Peridot & Lapis to rifle through. As soon as they discovered one with Wade fighting a vampire bat creature on the cover titled "Deadpool: The Gauntlet," the Deadpool on the cover continued the song.

"Well my friends, you're in luck cause up your sleeves, you got a kind of guy that never fails!" After Deadpool emerged from the issue Peridot was holding, he shot down various villains emerging from the other comics while singing.

"You got a real badass in your corner now, a real Wolverine type in your camp!" he then demonstrated by transforming his face into that of Logan's and then back again before letting bullets rain from above. "He can shoot, kablam! Bullets galore, all you gotta do is say my name!" Wade crooned. "And I'll say: 'Miss Peridot and Lapis Lazuli, what will your pleasure be?'"

As he sat the Gems down on a beach blanket, Deadpool then assumed pirate attire and set a heavy treasure chest on the ground. "Just give me a guy and I'll shoot him down, you ain't had a mercenary like me!"

Peridot began to excitedly open the chest while Lapis rolled her eyes. "Life's like a treasure chest," Wade's disembodied voice continued. When the treasure box was opened, the mercenary exploded out of it and made gold fly everywhere. "AND I'M GONNA BE YOUR KEY!"

Unlike her smaller partner, Lapis was still not amused. "C'mon, whisper to me what you want," Wade kept crooning, followed by splitting himself into four smaller Deadpools. "You ain't had a mercenary like me!"

"Contractors pride ourselves on service." One of the mini-Wades stated, and then they merged into the prime Wilson while spawning a lavish couch for his two guests. "You girls the hoss, the queens, the Shah! No matter what you wish, I'll be your bitch! How 'bout a few chimichangas?"

"Have some of Sample A, try all of Sample B!" Following the chimichanga rain, Peridot and Lapis were handed free samples at a supermarket before they found themselves on a velvet pillow held by Wade. "Anytime, any day, I'll help you babes. You ain't had a mercenary like me!"

A brief dance number then ensued between Deadpool and his hands. His left hand vocalized and the degenerate replied with an "Oh my!" When the right hand started singing, it was responded with "No no!" Both hands harmonized and they got a "Ha ha ha!" They sandwiched Deadpool between them as he peaced out with a "Zip-a-dee doo-dah!"

When Deadpool returned, he pointed straight at Peridot. "Give me a good badda-yadda-yadda!"

"Badda-yadda-yadda!" Peridot excitedly repeated. "Good, scotty-wop!" Wade then pointed to Lapis. Her reply was more unsure. "Uh, scotty-wop?"

"Everybody now!" Deadpool compelled the readers. "Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!"

"Bibbidi-bobbidi-boo!" the readers answered excitedly.

"Yeah, y'all got it!" Wade congratulated before proceeding to demonstrate his healing factor. "Can your friends do this?" he asked, casually dislocating his arms. "Can your friends do that?" he added, ripping out his spinal cord to bounce on it like a certain stuffed tiger. "Can your friends pull this?" With that, Wade tore his skeleton out of his body and started dancing the Charleston with it. "Out a little hat?!"

Suddenly, Wade's skeleton started filling itself with dynamite sticks on the verge of exploding. "CAN YOUR FRIENDS GO-" The human mutate was interrupted as the TNT exploded, and the clouds gave way to him beatboxing while doing a silly dance.

"Call me the Merc with a Mouth, I am always there. North, West, East and South! So don't sit there slackjawed, all buggy-eyed! I'm here to answer all ya evening prayers!" he continued. "You got me bona-fide certified! A hired gun for your charge affair!"

"I got a powerful urge to help you out! So who's gonna die? I really need to know!" Deadpool said as the song began to reach its climax while pulling a long strip of paper from Peridot's mouth and began rubbing his bottom with it. "You got a list that's three miles long no doubt. So all you gotta do is pay-wayho!"

For the final setpiece, Peridot and Lapis now stood atop a mountain of dead Marvel characters that are so obscure, not even the most hardcore fans knew a thing about them. "Miss Peridot and Lapis Lazuli, what will your pleasure be?" Wade asked tunefully. Peridot then picked up one body, and its head suddenly turned into Deadpool's. "Anytime anyplace, I'll help you babes."

A few bodies rose from the dead, only for Deadpool to shoot them all down. "You ain't had a mercenary, never had a mercenary." He concluded. "You ain't had a mercenary, never had a mercenary."

Bullets once again began raining, along with all sorts of violent weapons as the song finally ended. "YOU AIN'T, HAD A, MERCE-NARY LIIIII-IIIIIKE MEEEEE!"

With the X-Force performing a kickline to finish things off, Deadpool pulled on a string dangling from above. "You ain't had a mercenary like me!" A flickering neon applause sign dropped down, capping off the rather pointless number.

"Well, that was a waste of time that'll never be spoken of again."

"Sincerest apologies to Alan Menken, Howard Ashman and especially Robin Williams. He would've been 69 this year. NICE!"

"Okay you generic-looking monster, time to discover who you truly are!" Connie declared to a captured Sasquatch while she, Peridot, Deadpool, Lapis and Cable were dressed as a certain band of meddling kids and their voracious canine pal. Connie ripped off the Sasquatch's head to reveal that it was a mask worn by an evil parrot with a scar across his face.

"Zoinks! Like, it's a parrot!" Deadpool declared in a beatnik voice. "Wait, a parrot? Is that all?"

"Far from it mein friends!" the parrot answered in a German accent. Suddenly, large robots kicked the walls around them down. "Behold, my Nazi robots!"

"N-Nazi robots?" Lapis stuttered. "Jeepers, this is just getting too weird."

Deadpool then glanced expectantly at Cable, who groaned while pushing up his glasses. "C'mon Cabey, say the line!" he exhorted the cyborg. With a heavy groan, Cable quietly said "Jinkies, run."

"He's right, let's split up gang!" Connie commanded, and the crew were off to the races. After passing by the same flowerpot approximately five times because there wasn't that much in the budget, the five came across a hallway littered with doors.

When Deadpool and Peridot burst into one door, they came out of another not too faraway, same with the others. However at the end of a door, they came across a blue digital ghost with yellow eyes & teeth and a grainy laugh.

"Ruh roh, rit's Rames Rarles the Rindly Rohnny!" Peridot exclaimed, making every word she spoke begin with R before she coughed. "How does anyone speak like this?" she asked Wade. "Because speech impediments are funny!" the mercenary replied. "Now let's move!"

"Seriously, why can't I be Fred?!" Cable complained while emerging from another door with Deadpool by his side instead of Lapis. "Connie gets the cool ascot, and all I'm left with is this bulky sweater and a short skirt!"

"Well for one, that skirt actually looks pretty cute on you." Wade answered with a stupidly cheeky grin on his face. Before anyone else could charge through more doors, zombie cats and dinosaurs that could move without thinking came charging in. "Wow, Scooby-Doo became a lot weirder than when I was a youngin."

Returning to the real world, the Crystal Temps and the X-Force have just plowed through an entire armed squadron inhabiting a conveniently abandoned office building and now had their leader tied up in a chair. "We ain't gonna let all those hallway fights amount to nothing!" Wade declared holding the squadron leader at gunpoint. "We've tried every torture technique in the book: eating your own food, threatening your family, doing a silly dance to some awesome music and yet still you won't talk!" he exclaimed. "So let me ask this again! What does the guy who gave Magneto & Doctor Doom those Sentinels look like?"

"What?" the gunman asked nervously, causing Wade to smash another wall. "WHAT COUNTRY ARE YOU FROM?!" the mercenary shrieked. "What?" the captive continued squeaking. "WHAT AIN'T NO COUNTRY I EVER HEARD OF!" Deadpool yelled. "THEY SPEAK ENGLISH IN WHAT?!"

"What?" the man said a third time. "ENGLISH MOTHER-" Deadpool began, but then he noticed the T-rating and groaned. "ENGLISH YOU BASTARD, DO YOU SPEAK IT?!" he reiterated. "YES!" the gunman finally said something other than what. "THEN YOU MUST KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT!" Deadpool kept yelling. "WHAT DOES YOUR MASTER LOOK LIKE?!"

"We could just beat the info outta him and be done with it." Bedlam advised. "No need for all this Pulp Fiction parody crap."

"Was I talking to you?" Wade asked his teammate tersely before going back to his captive. "Now where was I? Oh yeah! Does he look like a bitch?"

"Now you're just skipping lines!" the gunman squealed in defiance. "What else do you wanna do with me?!"

"Okay, I got another question for you." Wade stated. "Have you had your prostate exam lately?"

"What?" the gunman muttered, fearing what could come next. "In fact, I got just the girl to help me." Wade declared. "Hey Connie, your MILF of a mom is a doctor right? Surely you must know what I'm talking about!"

"Yeah, pretty much!" Connie answered. "Here, lend me your sword. We might need to operate." Deadpool said as he menacingly snapped on a pair of rubber gloves. "Hey author, why don't we cut to another scene before this gets too violent?"

"Now then, what are we working with he-There it is!"

"AUGH!"

Elsewhere, a stereotypical shadowy figure watched from a large video screen as the X-Force tore through his mercenaries. "That masked maniac is onto us!" he growled quietly while pounding his fist on an armrest and turned his chair to face Ruckus, Gorgeous George, Hairbag, Ramrod & Slab, the Nasty Boyz. "You five track him & those rainbow women down and kill them all!"

"Yes sir." The Nasty Boyz complied and set off for the Merc with a Mouth. "Now where do you suppose the merc could be now?" Hairbag asked his fellow Boyz. "My best guess, he's probably at that Hellhouse run by Patch." the Southern-accented Slab theorized. "Hopefully they have room for his head as a trophy."

"Well here we are at Saint Margaret's School for Wayward Children." Deadpool decreed as he suddenly parked a limo that he totally always had in front of the mercenary dispatch center he loved frequenting. "I suggest you try not to look at some of its inhabitants funny, some of them can get a little ballistic."

Entering the bar, the two teams had all eyes on them by all the other mercs at the establishment. "Uh, hello there." Connie nervously greeted one of them. "I don't think you're old enough to be here little girl." The mercenary replied ominously. "Don't worry Jessica, they're with me." Deadpool told the larger man. "So, where's Weasel?"

"Right here old buddy!" the bespectacled bartender called for Wade. "Hey, Weasel!" Wade exclaimed to his old friend while sitting down at the bar and exchanging a fistbump. "I see you're doing well Poolboy." Weasel said to his friend. "And who's the green midget with you?"

"This is Peridot, a member of the Crystal Gems." Shatterstar introduced Peridot. "Oh, you mean those rock ladies that creamed those Chitauri only to get creamed by Thanos?" Weasel asked, making Peridot pretty mad. "Hey, we creamed Thanos right back!"

"We're looking for information sir." Connie said to Weasel. "A friend of mine has been captured by Magneto & Doctor Doom using those Sentinel robots, and we want to know where they've come from."

"You want confidential info little girl?" the barkeep stated. "Go see Multiple Man over there at that poker table, he's usually the guy to talk to since he's a detective."

"Yet one mystery he can't solve is the mystery of why he can never get his own movie."

"ZING!"

At a nearby poker table, Jamie Madrox and some of his duplicates were playing cards with the albino mutant Caliban, and the four Jamies clearly had the upper hand. "All in!" one of the clones declared shoving his chips into the pot. "I know you are cheating Madrox." Caliban informed his opponent. "I mean, there are literally four of you!"

Just then, Deadpool abruptly shot one of the clones dead and sat down where he once was. "Deal me in." he simply declared as if nothing happened. "Caliban welcomes you Mr. Pool." Caliban nervously greeted the regenerating degenerate. "And who is your little friend?"

"You may call me Peridot, the suave, attractive and positively adorable leader of the Crystal Gems!" Peridot introduced herself arrogantly. "So, you more members of the X-Men? Haven't seen you around the mansion."

"Actually, we're members of a different team of mutants." Madrox replied, while his surviving doubles sadly carried their dead comrade away. "There are actually quite a lot of them you see. X-Factor; the one we're a part of, X-Statix, Excalibur, Generation X, the Morlocks and most famously Alpha Flight."

"Half of them sound so late 20th to early 21st century." Peridot commented. "I mean, X-Statix? Talk about totally cool dudes!"

Suddenly, there was a knock at the door. "Is this Saint Margaret's? We'd like to have a word with the owner." A voice came from the other side, catching all the patrons and employees off-guard. All was quiet, but then the Nasty Boyz came crashing through the wall instead of the door. "LET'S GET NASTY!" they all cried out, springing into action.

"Alright, what the shit is going on here?!" Bob "Patch" Stirrat, the elderly owner of Saint Margaret's growled, emerging from another room while stroking his big bushy mustache. "Oh god, it's the Nasty Boyz."

"The Nasty Boyz?" Peridot and Lapis repeated in unison before they laughed at the evil mutant team's name. Suddenly, the wood tables of the bar came to life and changed their form thanks to Ramrod, who used them to restrain everyone aside from Deadpool. "Okay boys, frisk him."

On Ramrod's orders, Gorgeous George used his shapeshifting powers to grab Wade by the ankles and dangle him above the ground. "Let's see what he's got here." Ruckus muttered, fishing through the belongings dropped as Wade was shaken up and down. "Various pistols, swords, nunchucks, staves, forks, a bazooka."

"Most of those were from a Ninja Turtles convention I went to last year." Wade revealed. "Don't know where the bazooka came from."

"Rubber chicken, five month old bag of pizza pockets; that are still warm," Slab continued for his teammate. "Ryan Reynolds's phone number, large collection of nude selfies from Thumbelin-WHAT?!"

To Slab's absolute shock and fury, he found an overfilled file of lewd pictures taken by his sister Kristina Anderson with her phone number on it, along with a message saying "I bet you want more, my raging sex machine!" Crushing the file in his hand, Slab furiously glared at Deadpool. "Wilson, you son of a bitch!"

"Geez Chris, I thought you had a sense of humor." Wade grinned cheekily. "After all, SHE'S YOUR SISTER!" Then like Thor returning Mjolnir to his hand, the mercenary wiggled his fingers to call one of his katana blades back and free himself from Gorgeous George before rescuing his friends. "SSSSSSmokin'!" he hissed before spin-dashing out of the bar.

"After that degenerate!" Hairbag exclaimed while Slab frothed in wordless rage and the Boyz gave chase, leaving the bar in tatters. "Hey, which of you assholes is gonna clean this up?!" Patch exclaimed, but then he answered his own question by handing Weasel a broom.

"Everyone, to the Deadpoolmobile!" Deadpool exclaimed as the X-Force and Crystal Temps piled into the limousine from earlier. "Where did you ever get this car anyways?" Bismuth asked him, and he replied. "Don't think about it!"

Far across the city, Robert Kelly was left facepalming and a colleague of his scratching his head when they discovered that one of Kelly's limos was missing, its place taken by a graffiti message saying "I O U".

"I hate that Deadpool." Senator Kelly groaned.

"You get back here this instant you red-masked c-" Slab called for Deadpool as the Nasty Boyz chased them in a stolen taxi, but his cursing was cut off by Deadpool popping out the sunroof of the limousine to open fire on them.

"Wait, if Deadpool is up there, then who is driving?" Connie asked the group, and that's when Yukio made a shocking realization. "Oh my god, Demon Bear is driving!" she exclaimed pointing to a demonic bear that was taking the wheel. "How can that be?!"

"That's right folks, Lawrence Abrams is here to report that the insanely infamous insane mercenary Deadpool has started an intense car chase where he's hijacked a limo belonging to Senator Robert Kelly and is being chased by a group of other mutants called the Nasty Boyz." Lawrence Abrams said on the television at the Baxter Building, where Garnet, Pearl, Colossus and Wolverine had now caught wind of the event. "And there's also some kinda bear driving the limo for some reason. Why's there a bear?! Who gives a damn! And now onto Sally Floyd with politics!"

"Deadpool." Colossus glowered in embarrassment. "Come my friends, we must go and handle this crisis ourselves." He declared while preparing to leave the building. "But you let Connie go on that mission for her optimism." Pearl stated to the metal mutant while setting Reed and Sue's young son Franklin Richards on the floor.

"We know Pearl, but that maniac is a whole 'nother level of unpredictable." Wolverine grumbled. "And there's a high chance Connie's life is at risk here! Right Garnet?"

"Logan is correct. I can see multiple paths where things go horribly wrong." Garnet agreed with Logan. "Oh, you're leaving already?" Franklin's older sister Valeria asked them. "Mom and Dad were just about to introduce you to H.E.R.B.I.E."

"It's alright Valeria, they still have friends to help." Susan assured her daughter. "Go on Gems, we'll catch up with you back at the mansion."

"It's been a pleasure to be shown around the Baxter Building and meeting the kids Sue." Pearl said gratefully and shook the Invisible Woman's hand. "I especially like how Franklin reminds me of Steven."

"Bye Ms. Pearl!" Franklin said goodbye by hugging the tall Gem's leg. "Oh, goodbye to you too Frank." Pearl replied. "Hey, what about me?!" the Four's AI H.E.R.B.I.E exclaimed irritably. "Don't I get anything to say?!"

"Oy Cain, you gotta check this out!" Black Tom called to Juggernaut while he was watching TV. The Brotherhood of Mutants had stopped to refuel their ship and Black Tom had run off on his own when he discovered a TV shop playing the same news report of Deadpool's car chase. "What say we give Deadpool an old one-two before Mags finishes up?"

"You son of a bitch, I'm in!" Juggernaut exclaimed eagerly, giving his teammate a fist-bump that knocked Tom to the ground. "You okay there?"

"We have your limousine surrounded! Come out of the vehicle with your hands in the air!" a police officer barked into a bullhorn as they had Deadpool and pals backed into a corner. "I would make a police brutality joke, but even I know that would be too soon." Wade said to the readers as he screeched the limo to a stop, making donuts on the street and damaging numerous police cars in the process.

"Okay, now you're just either showing off or defying us." The cop with the megaphone japed. Just then, a mighty thud briefly shook the ground. And another. And another. And another. And-

"Quit stalling writer, we know who it is! It's the goddamn Juggernaut!" Deadpool interrupted the third-person omniscient narrator. "Literally everyone and their goddamn long lost relatives know who he is!" The mighty Juggernaut continued inching closer to the fanboying mercenary while the police scattered out of fear of him and Peridot poked her head out the sunroof to see what was up.

"Uh, Wade?" the petite Gem squeaked nervously. "You know who that is right?"

"Didn't I just say that it's ol' Juggernaut?!" Wade exclaimed to his new best friend. "Oh, the things I could say about how much of a badass he is! This guy has beaten the shit outta Cyttorak, the Thing, Colossus, Blob & Thor and even called banging She-Hulk a stalemate! Maybe, that last one was actually a cl-"

Before Deadpool could finish the sentence, Juggernaut grabbed him by the neck with just two fingers and brought him very close to his helmeted face. "Hello Wade." He beamed callously. "Hey Cainy, is that new toothpaste I smell?" Deadpool greeted him nervously. "What flavor is it this time, Feeling Bad About Your Shitty Mutant Powers So You Get New Ones from Cyttorak?"

"Goddamn he went there." Black Tom muttered, only to receive a glare from his partner.

"Deadpool!" Garnet called for the Merc with a Mouth as she, Pearl, Colossus and Wolverine entered the scene. "Oh, hey guys." Peridot nervously waved to her fellow Crystal Gems. "What brings you here?"

"We came here to take control of this current situation." Pearl explained. "No matter how much you want to swear and kill and all sorts of other crass activities, we still need your help in saving a friend of ours."

"I appreciate you want me to be more involved in this story Mordecai," Wade said to Pearl. "but can this wait a bit? I'm currently in the middle of worshipping the Juggernaut, bit-"

However within seconds, Deadpool was mashed into the ground by Juggernaut, leaving only a few scattered body parts lying in a puddle of blood. "Oh, so rude!" his disembodied head declared indignantly. "And to think we were buddies at one time Marky-Mark." He then turned to face the audience one last time before the degenerate would meet his not very possible untimely end. "But since I'm literally nothing but blood, my head, a few fingers, an upper arm and my dick right now, let's lighten the mood a little with some more gags, shall we?"

"As if we didn't waste enough time already."

"I love the smell of 372,844 pancakes in the morning." Deadpool declared as he flipped his last pancake and added it to the growing mountain of pancakes. "Smells like victory!"

"Why on Earth would you need this many pancakes?" Bismuth asked while Deadpool turned on the ceiling sprinklers to pour maple syrup all over each and every one of them at once. "Well, that's pretty clever I'll admit."

"Okay Peridot, ace this test and you're on the team!" Wade, now a coach for the girls' swim team comprised of Lapis, Bismuth, Domino, Warhead, Yukio, Outlaw, Copycat, Psylocke & Nephrite, announced to their soon to be newest member Peridot while she prepared to dive.

"This is it Peri, get this right and you'll make everyone proud!" Peridot muttered to herself while adjusting her cap and gazing at Lapis. As soon as Coach Wade blew the whistle, Peridot leaped into the water…and soon began struggling to keep herself afloat in a very exaggerated manner. "AAAAAGH, SOMEONE HELP! LIFEGUARD, COACH, SOS! THIS WAS A HORRIBLE IDEA!" she shrieked for help before the chlorinated water won out and she sank to the bottom.

"I'll save you!" Cable roared while assuming the role of a lifeguard, preparing to jump in the water after her when Wade stopped him. "No no, wait for the punchline."

When Peridot finally breached the surface, she dramatically gasped for air and then frantically paddled towards the end of the pool, grabbing the ledge with a serious expression on her face. "So, how do you like my swimming?" she asked, acting like nothing had happened. However, no one else was there to answer except for Deadpool. "Hey, where did everyone go?!"

"They jumped ship an hour ago because they were tired of waiting." Wade answered. "But you still get on the team cause you really made me laugh."

"Gotta say Lapis, we got quite a team here." Deadpool remarked proudly to his fellow baseball player Lapis. "Uh, yeah, they're great." Lapis nervously replied while failing to get the joke. "So, who's on first?"

"Yeah, and what's on second." Wade responded eagerly. "No, I want to know who's on first." Lapis continued asking. "Exactly! We already established that who's on first, what's on second and I don't know is third."

"Wait, do you not know their names or are those seriously what they're called?" the ocean Gem asked, causing great irritation for her team captain. "Dammit Lapis, you spoiled the punchline!" he reprimanded her. "In fact, this whole Abbott and Costello tribute was just an excuse to see you dress up as Bob again! I mean, can you blame me with those shorts?"

"Abbott and who now?" Lapis remarked with a raised eyebrow.

"You really need to get out more." Wade deadpanned, lowering his eyelids in response.

"Welcome back one and all to Celebrity Jeopardy." Pearl announced, now dressed as Alex Trebek. "Now before we proceed, I'd like to apologize on the behalf of our contestants to all viewers with rather unusual lifestyles. We here at the studio refuse to judge anyone based on how they live, and sincerely hope you accept our apologies. Now then, let's proceed with our contestants."

Deadpool was in the podium closest to Pearl, now dressed as Sean Connery. "Mr. Connery is in first place with only -1 dollar." Pearl began recapping for the viewers at home. "About as many points as your mother gave you!" Wade cackled.

"Classy." Pearl responded crossly before shining the spotlight on Lewis Black, aka Peridot. "Mr. Black now has a score of, shockingly enough, -6,000 dollars." She explained, prompting the small Gem turned abrasive comedian to climb up on top of her podium in the middle. "Is that enough to buy my own bus?"

"And finally, Josh Brolin, now having raised 35 dollars." Pearl concluded while Juggernaut assumed the role of the aforementioned actor many may know as a certain Mad Titan. "I don't feel so good." Cain muttered. "Damn, walked right into that one!"

"Very well then. With introductions out of the way, let's move onto the board." Pearl stated, moving her eyes from the podiums to the categories. "Tonight our categories are Annals of History, Potent Potables, What Bulls Hit, Jokes, Popular Foreign Television, Places with Names Ending in 'Nia' and Video Games." Deadpool then pressed his buzzer. "Mr. Connery, you have the board."

"I'll take What Bullshit for $500 Al." Wade announced with a stupid grin on his face, clearly misreading the category he had chosen. "And I can tell you plenty of things that are bullshit."

"No, it clearly says What Bulls-" Pearl began to correct the masked contestant before she came to a realization. "Whoa! Okay, walked right into that one. Anyways, the question is: "It is commonly believed bulls are enraged by this color". Mr. Connery?"

"I'll tell you something I've hit recently." Deadpool chortled. "Hit up a few bars over the past week while hanging with your mom. She and I had a wonderful time, if you get what I mean! Wink wink, nudge nudge."

"I don't even have a mother!" Pearl ranted hotly. "And can we please return to what was happening earlier?! These pop culture references are nothing but a waste of time!"

"Thank you!"

"Boldface, you ignorant slut."

"Oh no, Wade!" Peridot yelled for Deadpool as she dashed out the limo to check on the puddle of blood and body parts that was once her new friend. "Please speak to us you clod, you can't die like this!"

"That's because I can't!" Deadpool proudly declared and in a beautiful Disney-like spectacle, slowly reassembled himself until he was the full-bodied lovable manic once again. "Healing factor baby! Got it when some asshole tried to cure my cancer, along with looking like a walking tumor."

"Uh hey, remember us?" the Nasty Boyz cried out in unison, catching the merc's attention. "Oh right, you guys. Gotta wrap up the chapter somehow." As a result, Wade opened fire on the evil mutants, shooting them in the arms, kneecaps and especially their dicks. "Oh and Bismuth, Peridot? You guys got Black Tom & Juggies. I'll take Garnet and Pearl!"

"You got it, I guess." Bismuth complied before she and her little friend squared off with Cassidy & Cain, leaving Wade alone against the senior Crystal Gems.

"Hey, what about us?" Lapis asked the writer, who responded by typing, "Didn't think that far ahead. You guys can just do crowd control."

"Okay Q-Bert and Drinking Bird," Deadpool exclaimed. "you two may have thousands of years of battle experience on your show but in terms of franchise ages, I've been doing this for far longer! There was even a graphic novel trilogy where an actually insane version of me killed the rest of Marvel, tons of classic literature characters and even other versions of me!"

"Do you have any idea what he's saying anymore?" Pearl asked Garnet. "I'm not sure. I fear he may be too unpredictable for us to comprehend!" Garnet answered fearfully. "You can try if you want." Deadpool beckoned them with a silly dance. "But I can assure you that hilarity will ensue!"

Pearl leaped at the Merc with a Mouth, but she was quickly denied a hit when Wade did a pirouette and kicked her in the back, sending her flying into a lamppost. "See, what did I tells ya?!"

Garnet tried her hand at attacking by enlarging her gauntlets & launching them at her foe, but they proved to be useless against him. Deadpool then rapidly fired his gun at Garnet, but she blocked all the bullets with her gauntlets and then finally moved so fast, not even Deadpool could catch her and was punched in the face.

"Wow okay, you got the guts!" Wade yelled while readjusting his head from the hit. "Seems like I really am a bit outmatched by you Garnet. Or maybe a certain someone just wants to make things fair!"

"Come on you maniac, what else can you throw at us?!" Pearl asked pointing her spear. "Oh what else can I throw?" Deadpool replied, letting out a sinister giggle while wearing a pair of shiny glasses and clasping his fingers together. "Let me show you!"

Whipping out his katana blades, Deadpool laughed maniacally while using them to tear the background apart, leaving nothing but a blank white space behind. "WELCOME CRYSTAL GEMS TO MY TURF! I PRESENT TO YOU THE FOURTH WALL, WHERE LOGIC IS JUST AS ILLEGAL AS JAYWALKING!"

"This is starting to remind me of that Uncle person." Pearl muttered in awe. "I thought we promised to never speak of that man again." Garnet instructed the former servant. "Well if he wants to make jokes and talk to the audience, then so can we."

When the two Gems joined hand, there was a bright shimmer as the pair merged into the returning glamorous Sardonyx. "Ladies, gentlemen and everyone in-between, the Gem Hostess with the Mostest has finally returned!" the fusion of Garnet and Pearl announced. "And it seems we have a very special guest star today."

"Sardonyx, huh?" Deadpool muttered while scrolling through the Steven Universe wiki for statistics. "Oh I see, she's here because we can both break the fourth wall!"

"A worthy opponent for you I must say!" Sardonyx chortled before smashing Deadpool in with her hammer. "Of course you realize this means war!" Wade roared, proceeding to whip out numerous cartoon guns, launching them all at once. "RATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATATA-RATA!" he screamed while launching lead at his fusion foe, following up with a declaration of "Omae wa mou shindeiru."

"N-NANI?!" Sardonyx cried out in shock before she spontaneously combusted with a cry of "HIDEBU!" However, the explosion cleared up and she was perfectly fine. "Psyche! Hammer time!"

Before Sardonyx could hit Deadpool with the hammer again, he disappeared into a cartoon hole like it were a solid object and reappeared out another. "Ha, that Spot douche should take notes from-OH GOD!"

"Anyone up for Whack-A-Mole?!" Sardonyx exclaimed, proceeding to whack her opponent multiple times with her hammer before he vanished and popped out another hole. And another, and another, and another, and another, until the hiding began to tire him out. "Jesus she's good." Wade panted, and then he began to make a plan. "I swore that I would never use this the moment I stole it from those schmoes, but I'm left with no choice!"

Sticking a hand up his red-clad butt, Deadpool pulled it out while holding a small black jewel that seemed similar to the Infinity Stones. "Ough, I also swore to never use it again because looking for it is a literal pain in my ass!"

"That Infinity Stone isn't canon!" Sardonyx objected while sounding like a stereotypical nerd. "Oh it may not be canon my dear, but we're in the Fourth Wall where anything could happen." Deadpool explained deviously. "With this Continuity Stone, I could warp all reality to my whims! I could use it to go back in time and erase One More Day by preventing Civil War from happening, or maybe beat the shit outta that Judas Traveller prick and his butt-buddies! But what I plan on doing now is using this stone to erase you from this reality once and for all!"

"Oh no, I don't feel so good!" Sardonyx dramatically announced as she felt herself fading away. "I'm melting! Melting! Oh what a world, what a world!" With that, the fusion finally vanished and presumably Garnet & Pearl as well. As Deadpool let out a heavy sigh, he suddenly realized that the Continuity Stone was now missing. "What the?! Where did it go!?"

"Looking for something Ninja Spidey?" a familiar voice rang out. Sardonyx was now back to normal and smugly held the Stone in her hand, setting it down like a golfball and swinging it at Deadpool's eye, causing his body to explode.

"Can I at least get one F-bomb in Mr. Author Man? Please?" Wade begged the author by putting on his best puppy dog eyes until his disembodied head landed in one of Sardonyx's hands. "To be or not to be," she began quoting Shakespeare. "That is the question."

"I got a question." The mercenary's head growled angrily. "On a scale from one to ten, how much do you think I FUCKING hate you?"

"Watch the mouth sonny, children could be reading this!" Sardonyx chortled. "Now then, let's finish this chapter!"

One bypass of the chapter break later, Sardonyx and the defeated Deadpool were now out of the Fourth Wall and back in the real world where the Nasty Boyz, Juggernaut & Black Tom were now nowhere to be seen.

"Okay, I give up!" Deadpool complained while his body began to regenerate. "I'll go with your stupid plan! Didn't really need to treat me like how Pearl killed that one Irishman during the Easter Rising."

"It was an accident!" Pearl exclaimed as she and Garnet defused. "And how did you possibly know?"

"But before we move onto the next chapter, can we make a quick stop first?" Deadpool asked. "There's a joke I think needs resolving."

"You'll never take the whale from me Wilson!" Captain Ahab exclaimed as he engaged in a swordfight with the dread pirate Straw Hat Deadpool and his motley crew. "I'll surrender when I get eaten alive!"

"Funny you should mention that Habbo." First Mate Peridot sneered before she whistled loudly for Willy to breach the surface, breaking most of Ahab's ship and swallowing him whole. "I'll get you for this Wade!" Ahab shrieked vengefully. "You haven't seen the last of me!"

When Ahab was finally swallowed, Willy gave the pirates his farewells and dove back into the water, free again at last.

"What did parodying both Free Willy and Moby Dick have to do with anything?" Pearl asked Straw Hat Deadpool. "You know what? After what I've experienced, I don't think I want to know."

At long last, the chapter is done! Good thing too, because my partner has just started college as we write this and all that education is gonna cut into his freetime!

Yes indeed, the next chapter will take a bit longer to come out because of college. But I still get a few months off soon, so there you go.

Well, that should settle it. You get some free writing done and I won't take your ANDY ONLY stuff. Hasta luego amigo! And be sure to give my regards to your mom!

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chiseler · 4 years

Text

THE CHISELER INTERVIEWS ANDY McCARTHY

Chiseler: Please tell our readers when you began digging into obscurantist concerns -- these strange and neglected corners of New York history. Give us a sense of how it all started, and some idea of the scope here. Andy McCarthy: I worked as a New York City tour guide on the red doubledecker buses between 2004 and 2011, and Times Square was one of the highlights of the tour. The tour began and ended in Times Square — New York begins and ends in Times Square. The history of the world's entertainment district is a big subject — lots to talk about and always more to learn. Plus everyone hates Times Square. Elmo probably even hates it. So it was even more inspired to find the appreciation for the experience of it as it is now in the present. Like going to a Starbucks in the East Village and finding yourself talking to the ghost of Joey Ramone, who loves the Tall Blonde. West 42nd Street in particular was always a synapse-inducing subject — it isn't that it's obscurantist (except maybe for understanding the real estate chronology), but that there are a million ways of approaching it — it's the brightest neighborhood in America after all — the old theaters, the showbiz history, labor action, smut lore, the "cleanup" and failed redevelopments before the final wrecking ball in the 1990s, etc. Anyhow in 2012, film programming friends were putting together a series that revolved around the history of W. 42nd Street — they called it THE DEUCE, after the nickname for the block between Seventh and Eighth Avenues. The idea was to program a movie that once played in one of the theaters on the Deuce, and I would perform an intro monologue/ slideshow about the history of the theater. We did our first screenings in the backroom of Videology on Bedford Ave in Williamsburg, and then evolved to the proper movie chambers of Nitehawk Cinema in 2013, where as of March 2020 we have done about 80 screenings. Don't call me an expert but the pop legacy and damaged psyche yielded by the Glittering Gulch has consumed my research panascope like a large bucket of stale popcorn you can't stop shoving it in with gulps of fountain Coke during a matinee of Wolfen. For the last six years I've worked as a reference librarian at NYPL at Fifth Ave and W. 42nd (not the Deuce). My division is US History, Local History, and Genealogy - we get all the NYC history questions. At NYPL the resources available in researching each month's DEUCE spiel far surpass the amount of tips bagged at the height of tourist season by the Naked Cowboy.

Chiseler: When I was 15 or 16 years old, a suburban Jersey kid, I would occasionally take the bus to Port Authority with $20 in my pocket. It was a magical place in the 70s and 80s. Can you tell us something about the porn scene in those days, maybe its larger history, and how it relates to the evolution of your Nighthawk Cinema?

McCarthy: I’m generalizing, but the porn business in Times Square seems a combination of obscenity laws and the real estate market (versus the city and state imposing change). Obscenity laws had increasingly loosened since the 1960s and by the 1980s so many cases ruled in favor of pornography that the pursuit of smut peddlers evaporated like dots of old money shots on a mattress at the Elk Hotel. Sure Edwin Meese led a commission against porn in Reagan's Morning in America as a coalition of the religious right against the entire ethos of the 1970s, but it doesn't seem to have achieved anything other than beleaguering feminist activists who opposed the rampant exploitation of women in pornography only to find a black hole of political alignment with right wing morality police. Live sex shows and bestiality periodicals were then the product of free speech. Meanwhile, big business had no interest in occupying or redeveloping the commercial spaces in Times Square. But landlords held on to the old buildings and theaters — occupied by movie theaters, sex shops, etc. - waiting for a future time when the demand for Times Square real estate upped the value and they might cash in. The neighborhood became a sex district mostly because these were the only businesses that would pay rent in the area — which most New Yorkers supposedly avoided. And it was the 1970s — the white middle-class had fled, it was a party town, the city was broke, its own redevelopment efforts continually failing on the Deuce, where the racial patron and hangout demographic was majority Black, and drugs and prostitution were viable business. But the theaters on the Deuce mostly didn't play porn. The Victory (today the "New Victory") played triple-X and the Harem was a 24 hour porn box — but you had more opportunity to see First Blood or What's Up Doc? in the 8 or 9 other theaters on W. 42nd between 7th and 8th Avenue. XXX theaters were elsewhere in Times Square than the Deuce. Whether it was magical depends on one's experience of it at the time. Times Square has always been a fantasy factory and the DEUCE movie series we do exalts going to the movies, and even when the experience back then was rough, most reminiscences of people seeing movies on 42nd Street is a memory of great impact. We do not celebrate that it was so bad it was good (the same way we do not program movies that are "so bad they are good" — that crap is for bored minds who are less able to form an independent thought than the digital diode Coca-Cola sign at 47th and Broadway) — but it is a combination of place and experience in a matrix of moviegoing: there are many stories to tell about each theater, and the movies we program may take on new life in the forgetting chambers of Nitehawk Cinema. If porn ended up characterizing the business of Times Square when obscenity laws and real estate allowed it to, then no surprise — such is history…

Chiseler: I’m with you on “so bad it’s good” — a goddamn disease. I spend years of my life hunting down non-canonical titles, not with the tacky idea of establishing an alternative canon, but with the goal of subverting the very notion of canons. In other words, I’m seeking great films that establish their own criterion for greatness, compelling viewers to recognize them on their own ground. To expand your last answer a bit, would you mind dwelling on a few titles you’ve screened and tell our readers why you selected them?

McCarthy: OK — the DEUCE is a group effort. First off we are thankful for Nitehawk Cinema to have hosted the series for so long. I only do the intro monologue / slideshow on the history of a theater, while my co-jockeys — seasoned film programmers Joe Berger, Max Cavanaugh, and Jeff Cashvan — program the screenings, which are always a 35mm print, sprocketed by boothmaster Pro-Jo Joe Muto. The 35mm signature touch seems to be one of the ongoing draws for the audience, who routinely sell out the 90 seat theater, ahem... Cashvan puts together a list and Max tracks down a print (if one exists). The selections hinge on whether the movie once played in a theater on the Deuce, and the availability of a 35mm print — the experience of history in the screening zeroes down to the technology too. The movies are chosen because they have creative merit and yield enough for the viewer to determine if they are good or bad — or anything in between, which is much more interesting. Also we gotta honor the faith of the ticket-buyers and uphold any rep of the series, and not hash up some dumb time-wasting crap. Some of the flicks might be obscure, like Night of the Juggler (a gritty 1980 NYC exegesis on the type of race and class tensions too familiar under the U.S. presidency of the hurrahed bastard) or Teen Lust (bizarre sex romp directed by that-guy character actor James Hong) or Combat Shock (Vietnam vet psychodrama shot in Staten Island, including the Nam scenes), and other flicks are not obscure, like A View to a Kill or Tommy or Luna or Runaway Train... The crowds continually seem to enjoy a genuine going-to-the-movies experience; there is never any of that ironic insecure brainless hipster douchebag laughter that you get at some of these retro screenings that sizzles my nerves like hamburgers and franks on the grill at Grand Luncheonette at 229 W. 42nd Street next to the old Selwyn Theater — both places long gone. I saw Lost Weekend at BAM one time and was surrounded by people laughing at Ray Milland suffering from delirium tremens. What kind of loser pays $15 to act like that at a movie? Anyhow - those types don't come to these screenings. Some people come no matter what is playing, others for nostalgia or a particular love for a movie, others for whatever. No one is coming to experience the reenactment of a W. 42nd Street theater in 1982, which is not the intention — if it was we would just play grade-Z spaghetti westerns or Porky's sequels and allow smoking in the theater.

Chiseler: I realize that COVID puts a fairly long-term kaibosh on movie theaters. Where, if anywhere, do your hopes lie for continuing your work? Night of the Juggler ranks among my favorite films, by the way.

McCarthy: I am working on a book that corrals all the research I've done for the last 8 years. As far as reopening movie theaters, I have no clue. That is up to Nitehawk etc. The series is a theatrical communal thing. We haven't all been in touch about carrying things through the quarantine because there is no virtual alternative. As for Juggler it's too bad the movie is super unfindable. But how and where we obtained a one-time-only print will remain as undisclosed as a Gambino wiseguy taking the fifth.

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