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It was chilling, how completely Wade vanished out of Vanessa's life after they broke up. Some days it was like he'd never even existed, like the bubble of safety and laughter that they'd built had been nothing but a weird afternoon nap dream, a three-minute montage set to some cheesy love song. Vanessa tried to keep moving. She got a new place, a different job, new clothes, a whole new life. She had nothing to complain about, not really.
Wade, though. The guy's tagline was 'maximum effort' but somewhere along the way, something had broken inside him that his healing factor couldn't fix, and he'd just given up. On everything, including their relationship. It wasn't like she wanted him to go full Every Breath You Take— but he could've maybe boombox'd Careless Whisper outside her bedroom window once or twice. She kept expecting it and it just kept not happening.
The surprise birthday party was Yukio's plan. Al invited Vanessa. She'd thought it was a good idea. Maybe it would help remind Wade that he still had things to live for. People who cared. For a second, watching him from across the room as he joked around with Colossus, she could almost make herself believe it. But when she got him one-on-one, his eyes were empty and his smile was big, beautiful and fake as Dolly Parton's tits, and Vanessa knew he was drowning.
She put her hand over his and he pulled away. It stabbed her in the heart. She'd had to leave— sure, she could've stuck around, thrown herself in the deep end after him, but if Wade couldn't even admit there was a problem, what good would it have done either one of them? Knowing she'd made the smart choice didn't make it any easier to live with. She thought back sometimes to that gray afternoon when the doctor had given Wade the bad news, throwing words like 'palliative' and 'hospice' across the desk into their faces, and Wade had still been bright-eyed, fierce— making plans, cracking jokes. Trying to fix things for her, to make it right somehow. How could you not love someone with that unquenchable, ungovernable fire in his eyes, even if everything else looked like last week's vegan pizza?
Vanessa broke up with her boyfriend from work. It wasn't fair to him; she was still mourning, in a way. She'd given it her best shot, but her feelings for Wade were curled up deep inside her like a lost condom, and it was going to take more than some kind and kinky German dick to fish it out. She hit up the apps, got laid. Had to pull a knife one night on an Uber driver who thought she looked drunk and easy. None of it made her feel any better. She kept a collection of filthy Polaroids wrapped in an ugly Christmas sweater in the back of her closet, and she didn't cry over them very much. Just sometimes.
Then one Tuesday the obligatory third-act superhero fight hit downtown, waves of faceless low-stakes cannon-fodder goons rushing the hero one at a time, dragging out the runtime. Ordinarily Vanessa wouldn't have bothered watching, but weirdly they were all Deadpools— and Wade was there. Two swords. Maximum effort. Vanessa missed the first ten minutes of a virtual meeting about potentially renewing the lease on her company's downtown office space, frozen in her office chair, glued to social media, watching blurry clips from cellphone cameras and wishing she hadn't deleted Xitter.
"Hey, Vanessa," her co-worker Nadine finally said, knocking gently at her office door, "aren't you going to join the meeting?"
"There's a superhero fight." Vanessa straightened up from her hunched position over her laptop, gesturing at the screen in what she hoped was a chill, not overly-invested manner.
"Is there a big blue sky beam shooting up into a swirling portal?"
"No," Vanessa admitted.
"Okay, so... do you need me to send you the Webex link, or...?"
"No, I got it, thanks." Vanessa joined the meeting, muted herself and watched Wade fight the goons in another tab, smashing his way through a trashed city bus. At least he wasn't alone— he was fighting side-by-side with some guy in an X-Man yellow suit. Cameos were expensive, so Vanessa hadn't met many big-name mutants; plus, gratuitous blood-spatter kept flying out and hitting the lens, so she couldn't quite tell who was out there fighting by Wade's side. She was pretty sure she'd have remembered that goofy-ass mask with the blowjob handles. Still, it made her heart jump. Wade was back in the suit. He was fighting for something again.
Vanessa took a deep breath and closed the tab. Unmuting herself, she slipped in during a pause from Cliff from marketing, who was in the middle of a full-throated defense of RTO policies, mostly because he hated his wife and kids. "Cliff, those are all great points," she said, smiling, "but everyone who's joined the team in the last three years came in with the expectation of a hybrid or fully remote schedule, and unless we're considering paying relocation costs or otherwise offsetting the major life disruption— not to mention the financial impact— that returning to office is going to cause, I don't think we can really justify—"
"I just think nobody wants to work any more," Cliff said, and Vanessa curled her toes inside her shoes so hard she thought she felt something crack. She wondered if Wade still did any contract killing on the side. Seriously considered texting him, for about two seconds. Saw you on the news, you up? What can I get for $275 and a Yogurtlands reward card?
She didn't text him. But it was nice to think that maybe, if she really needed to, she could.
She and Dopinder followed each other on Instagram, so that was how she learned that Wade had moved in with the X-Man, who was apparently some other timeline's version of Wolverine. And not only that, Wade was on a superhero team with him. Was apparently leading a whole superhero team with him. Dopinder said they were still brainstorming names. She was happy for him. She really was. And so what if late at night, she couldn't stop wondering why he hadn't called? Did he not want her back? Had he moved on, found someone new?
Soon enough, coincidence pushed the plot along; Vanessa and Wade ran into each other on the street outside a florist's shop, across from Vanessa's favorite tattoo parlor. Wade had lost the shitty toupee and he looked great. He was wearing a slightly too-tight black vintage Malibu Barbie tee and walking the ugliest rat of a dog that Vanessa had ever seen. It was wearing little velcro shoes and a bedazzled harness, stopping to piss every four seconds on whatever overpriced bouquets had been displayed near dog level. Wade had his head down, cooing at it patiently, and then he looked up and saw Vanessa.
"Hey!" he said, and grinned at her, eyes sparkling.
"Wade!" Vanessa said back, her heart jumping. "Hi!"
"Well— wow. You look great. What are you up to? You want to get a coffee?"
"We probably should," Vanessa said, "we're twelve hundred words in and none of the characters tagged as being in a relationship have so much as actually interacted yet."
"Except in flashback," Wade interjected.
"Except in a dialogue-free flashback." Vanessa smiled. "Yeah, Wade. Now's a good time. Let's get coffee."
Vanessa went inside and ordered for them, since Wade had to stay outside with the dog ("She has attachment issues. And also like me, she's an anxious pisser.") He got them a table and Vanessa came out with the coffees and they sat down, Wade's horrible little dog snuffling around eating crumbs and cigarette butts from off the sidewalk.
"So listen," Wade said, clearing his throat, "you deserve an apology."
"I really don't," Vanessa said. "Not from you." She took a deep breath, trying not to gaze at him too thirstily, but it was rough. He looked amazing, his shoulders thrown back confidently, legs primly crossed at the knee, pinky cocked as he lifted his cup of espresso.
"C'mon. First movie, first real two-hander scene with dialogue, and it's me telling Dopinder: Don't make my mistake! Hold on to love tight and never let go— and then, I— Well. Y'know."
"It could've been worse," Vanessa said. "I could've gotten fridged. Sudden sequel death syndrome. Dodged that bullet twice, even."
"That's not funny. Don't even joke," Wade said, which was pretty rich, coming from him.
"No, I'm just saying. I could've disappeared between movies. It happens all the time. Compared to that, what we got wasn't so bad. A mature, emotionally aware split between a woman with standards and a man who refuses to do the work of unpacking his own issues? A breakup that doesn't make the female love interest look like a selfish shrew?"
"God, the bar is in hell," Wade muttered.
"We even stayed friends! I was supportive, but maintained emotional boundaries— what more could a card-carrying Babe of the Week who got tagged in the first movie's opening credits as 'A Hot Chick' expect?"
"People should watch 'The Endgame,' she carries that show," Wade said to no one, then set his espresso cup down on his saucer with a clatter. He looked into her eyes, his hand twitching like he wanted to reach out and take hers in his own, but he didn't. "Can I say one thing? You'll always be A Hot Chick to me."
"Aw, sweetie."
"But still. For a guy whose tagline is 'two swords, maximum effort,' I really didn't—"
"I said that already."
"When?"
"In the narration. Second paragraph."
"Well— it's a good line," Wade said. "True facts."
"If you really want to apologize for something," Vanessa said, "how about the second movie's subplot where I wanted you to put a baby in me? It's the twenty-first century, we can kill a hundred monkeys with biotech brain-chip implants but we still can't think of anything to do with a female character except knock her up, no matter how incompatible it is with her personality or lifestyle?"
"Hard agree!" Wade said. "Let's just pretend that never happened. I mean, I'll call you Mommy any day of the week if that's what you want, but—" He coughed, clearing his throat and looked down at the ugly dog, who was licking an oily spot on the pavement. "Baby, stop it. Mary Puppins! It'll stunt your growth!"
Vanessa couldn't help but laugh. "Who knows," she teased, "maybe you'd have made a good papa after all."
"I got a heart full of love for this sweet baboo and you know for damn sure her mouth's cleaner than mine," Wade said fondly. Reaching down, he scooped it up into his arms and made full eye contact with Vanessa, smiling as it licked all over his face with its horrid little tongue. He wasn't even being a perv. He was just... happy.
Vanessa thought about it on her way home. The way Wade still looked at her like she was the Hope Diamond— problematic history, cut down by man after man to fit their desires, but still gorgeous, perfect, a treasure— that hadn't changed, and it warmed her from the inside like no nine dollar unicorn latte ever would. But he hadn't flirted with her, not seriously anyway; hadn't laid down many double or even single entendres. Either he'd gone full Jedi no-attachments or he was aiming all that big dick energy at someone else, and Vanessa was pretty sure which one was more likely. Who, though? Someone on his team, maybe. That MILF ninja hottie with the Pilates body, or the Magic-Mike-looking mushmouth? Apparently it wasn't any of Vanessa's business any more. Not if Wade didn't want to tell her.
And it didn't really matter. Whoever it was that Wade was getting his pipes cleaned by— good for her. Or him. Or them. Wade seemed sincerely happy, and after all he'd been through, who could say he didn't deserve a little happiness, and to get slammed down big style by a half-vampire zaddy with a tight fade if it turned out that's what he wanted?
Yeah. Good for him.
They started texting each other again, after that. Funny little jokes and asides, pictures of the ugly dog in uglier sweaters, Vanessa complaining about office politics and Wade offering sweetly to chop off limbs or appendages as requested. His superhero team went through two secret hideouts, a couple of roster changes and a handful of names, each one worse than the last. They finally settled on The Exiles, and Wade said that if any overly-invested nerds pointed out that the name was already taken by an X-adjacent team in the comics continuity, they could gently nibble his nuts.
The Exiles didn't fight cosmic threats or fly off to other dimensions to save the galaxy; they were fighting bad guys, saving people. Making a difference. Wade and Vanessa hung out at the dog park sometimes, throwing sticks for Mary Puppins and talking shit to doodle owners. They went to see Phantom Menace together when the films were re-released in May. Vanessa got a raise and another promotion at work, and Wade and the Cajun came over and helped her install a sex swing in her condo's guest room. He sent her a sheaf of blue irises for her birthday, and she sent him an X-Men themed stripper for Labor Day. He told her all kinds of stories about his team, the other heroes and occasional anti-heroes that they teamed up with, the EMTs and first responders that they'd gotten to know like co-workers along the way— but never one word about anybody he was dating, or even screwing.
In the end, Vanessa concluded that Wade's new squeeze must be a civilian, someone like her. No powers, just trying to live a normal life. And Wade had learned his lesson from everything they'd been through, so he was keeping schtum about the whole thing to protect them from being a target. That was all right. She wouldn't press.
It was just so good to be his friend again.
A week or two before Wade's birthday rolled around again, he showed up unexpectedly at her front door with a take-out container of wonton soup and a six-pack of her favorite cheap beer. He looked nervous, hunched in a little, and Vanessa wondered what the bad news was. Was the world ending? Maybe Wade was proposing to his new sweetie and wanted to give her a heads up? Oh, god, was something wrong with the dog?
He gave her a helpless little shrug. She got two forks out of the kitchen drawer, and they sat in her breakfast nook and ate wontons out of the same container.
"So listen," Wade said, "my birthday's coming up, and I, uh, I was wondering if maybe you wanted to do something special." He took a deep breath, purposely waited until Vanessa's mouth was full— the bastard— and went on. "Like, if we could make it a date. Don't say yes yet—" he said, and Vanessa made an outraged noise around her mouthful of slippery wonton. "Listen, is this the full court press N*SYNC I Want You Back? Yes. Yes it is. But there's something you should know first. Um," he said, and glanced out the window, strained, the pale-scarred parts of his face paling further, "the thing is, while we've been consciously uncoupled, I... Well."
"You've been seeing someone," Vanessa said, swallowing hard around the wonton and the lump in her throat.
"I am seeing someone," Wade said. "I was hoping that if Disney let me do pegging jokes then maybe polyamory wouldn't be a step too far."
"Oh." Vanessa blinked, thinking it over as Wade squirmed. "Well, do I get to know who?"
"Oh!" Wade said, laughing nervously. "Well. Right. Uh— sure. Uh. Logan. It's Logan," he mumbled, clearing his throat loudly as he waited for her reaction.
"Logan?" Vanessa said. "Your roommate, Logan? The Wolverine Logan?"
"Yup-p," Wade said, popping the P crisply. "Lolo, light of my life, the man-meat with the murder mittens. I figured you'd have guessed, I talk about him all the time— like, even before we met I—"
"Sure, but I didn't think you guys were actually..."
"What? C'mon, you knew I was bi. Pan. Queer. I talk about that all the time, too."
"Yeah, you talk about it," Vanessa teased. "Maybe I'm just impressed that you finally put your mouth—"
"Where my mouth is? Hey, listen, on the one hand, it's fucked up and problematic that a guy's gotta prove his pansexuality by taking a fat dick or else no one believes his sincere self-identification— on the other hand, trying to claim woke points for a lot of smug winky jokes that boil down to sexually harassing uncomfortable straight guys only goes so far— but whatever, right? Diversity win: Your ex-boyfriend is lumbersexually fucking a hairy mutant from Northern Alberta and also another universe! Uh, and by the way, in his universe, I guess there was this whole tragic boy-girl-boy love triangle kinda thing and— well, we've been talking it over and Lolo said he doesn't want to see me pining away, so why not lay it out for you? Give it to you straight, no pun intended? Because I— I'll always love you, Ness, and I love— him?" His voice went up a little on the last word, and Vanessa arched an eyebrow.
"You say that like it's a question."
"No, I— I do, I love him," Wade said, eyes flickering down and back up, his voice dropping into that weirdly sincere register that always made Vanessa's nipples hard. "It's stupid. So stupid. But, you know, he fucked up and pushed away everyone he ever loved until he lost them for good, and then he wandered around being lonely and hopeless until he ran into a deplorably foul-mouthed bitch who saved his soul and gave him new purpose and reason for living, so excuse me for empathizing, I guess—"
"I'm your deplorable bitch, in this analogy?"
"Who saved my soul, yes, you know you are, and you know what a slut I am for narrative parallels. Come on. Could polyamory fix him?" Wade said, spreading his hands like he was displaying a clickbait headline. "Could running a loving, consensual train on him fix him? The newest solution to modern relationship struggles may surprise you!"
"Two people is not a train."
"He's got a healing factor. He's got a healing factor that beats mine," Wade said, his voice dropping low, and Vanessa shuddered in sudden arousal, remembering the all-night fuck-fests Wade's healing factor had enabled. "Yeah, mama. That train don't stop. And hey, no major spoilers, just a little tease: that adamantium skeleton means he gives great cuddle afterwards. Like a big furry weighted blanket. Smells like one of those ironic scented candles for insecure bros who can't admit they enjoy femme shit, you know? Woodsmoke, flannel, teak, and just the lightest hint of a heavy smoker's cum. I'm not kidding, he rolls on me in the middle of the night and childhood traumas I didn't even know I had get squished right out of my body, full Temple Grandin hug machine style."
"Hm," Vanessa said. It was a good selling point. Wade knew she'd always loved a good squish-cuddle. "So it's going to be like you always say?" she said, unable to keep the smile off her face, and Wade grinned back even before she set him up for the joke. "Two swords—"
"—maximum effort?" Wade finished. He laughed, and suddenly she was laughing too. "Baby, I don't know what you call maximum effort, but if it's not two guys with healing factor-enhanced stamina doing their best to seduce you into a permanent devil's threesome— uh, not that I'm asking you to commit to the full lesbian U-Haul throuple after one date—"
"Why not, it's a fanfic," Vanessa said under her breath.
"Excuse me, when did you get so good at metacommentary? That's my thing!"
"I'm a superhero's girlfriend, Wade! I have to know the tropes. Call it self-preservation, if nothing else," Vanessa said, then bit her lip as she realized what she'd just admitted.
"Don't worry. If it happens in the fourth wall break, it stays in the fourth wall break," Wade said, but he was almost breathless, leaning across the table like he was about to reach over and drag her on top of it. "Anyway," he said, clearing his throat, "like I was saying. Maybe you could stay over after the party on Saturday and, you know, we all take our tops off, put on some Sade, give it sixty seconds and see how it goes. Call it my birthday present." He waggled his lack of eyebrows appallingly.
"You are very hard to shop for," Vanessa mused.
"There she is! That's my Ness!" Wade said. He reached over the table. Vanessa held her breath. Oh, she'd missed this, missed his touch— that scarred, dry, gentle hand. For the first time in a long, long time, Wade took her hand in his. She closed her eyes and held on tight.