….
The movie hadn't even started yet and it was already breaking the fourth wall.
Thomas leaned forward slightly.
Around him, he could feel the audience calibrating - adjusting their expectations, trying to figure out what kind of movie this was going to be.
….
The movie opened with Deadpool sitting in the back of a taxi, drawing a crayon picture of himself killing a stick figure.
The cabbie, a middle-aged Sikh man named Dopinder, glanced in the rearview mirror.
"Where to, sir?"
"Oh, you know, the expressway. Gonna murder some people. Standard Friday."
Dopinder nodded like this was completely normal. "Ah. Very good, sir. And you will need me to wait, or—?"
"Nah, I will catch an Uber back. Or steal a car. Haven't decided yet."
Their conversation was absurdly casual - Deadpool giving Dopinder love advice while casually checking his guns.
"Before we arrive, may I ask for advice about a woman?"
"Oh buddy, you came to the right guy. I am excellent at relationship advice. By which I mean I am terrible, but I will tell you what you want to hear."
"There is a woman. Gita. Very beautiful. But she is not interested in me. She prefers my cousin Bandhu."
Deadpool considered this. "Have you tried being less related to Bandhu? That might help."
"I... cannot do that."
"Then have you considered violence?"
"What?!"
"Just kidding. Mostly. Look, Dopinder, here's the secret to winning a woman's heart: confidence, honesty, and not being your cousin. You've got two out of three. Not bad odds."
They pulled up to the overpass. Deadpool checked his guns - dual pistols, fully loaded.
"Okay, this is my stop. Wish me luck!"
"Good luck, Mr. Pool!"
Deadpool climbed onto the overpass railing, looked down at traffic. A black SUV approached below.
He turned to the camera.
"Okay, quick recap for anyone who showed up late because they were watching that Frozen short: I am Deadpool. I am a mercenary. That SUV down there contains a bunch of armed assholes working for a guy named Francis—"
He pulled out his phone, showed a photo of a stern British man with dead eyes.
"—who tortured me, ruined my face, and generally made my life suck. So I am gonna kill him. But first I am gonna kill them, because action movies need an exciting opening and I am a people pleaser."
"Angel of the Morning" swelled on the soundtrack.
Deadpool jumped.
What followed was seven minutes of the most brutally choreographed action Thomas had ever seen in a superhero movie.
Deadpool crashed through the SUV's sunroof, fired both pistols point-blank into two guards' faces. Blood sprayed across the windshield - realistic blood, dark and viscous.
The couple to Thomas's left gasped. "Oh shit—"
The SUV swerved. Deadpool used a guard's body as a shield while unloading his weapons. "Twelve bullets!" he announced cheerfully. "Let's count 'em!"
One. Two. Three. Each shot accompanied by a quip:
"That's one!" (Headshot)
"Two!" (Groin shot - the guard screamed)
"Three! This is fun!" (Knee shot)
The SUV flipped.
Deadpool was thrown through the windshield, rolled across the pavement, and came up running.
A guard charged with a knife.
Deadpool caught his wrist, twisted until bones cracked audibly.
"You know what I love about knife fights?" Deadpool said, grabbing the knife. "The intimacy." He stabbed the guard through the throat. "It's like a really violent hug!"
Around Thomas, the audience was riveting - some laughing, others wincing, everyone engaged.
When Deadpool ran out of bullets, he threw both guns at a guard's face, knocking him cold. "I meant to do that!"
He drew his katanas.
The next three minutes were pure sword work - decapitations, dismemberments, limbs flying.
Deadpool hummed along to the music while leaving a trail of corpses.
At one point he cut off a guard's hand, caught it mid-air, waved it at another guard. "Hi there! Can you give me a hand? Oh wait, I already got one!"
The gym bros to Thomas's right were losing their minds. "YOOO—"
Finally, one guard remained - a terrified man in tactical gear holding his hands up.
"Wait! Wait! I have information!"
Deadpool paused. "Oh? Do tell."
"Francis isn't here! He sent us as a distraction!"
Deadpool looked at the camera. "You gotta be kidding me. This whole opening action sequence and the villain isn't even here? That's such a narrative—"
Behind him, the SUV exploded.
Deadpool was launched forward, tumbled across the highway, and came up smoking. "Okay, that was cool though."
….
[ONE YEAR EARLIER]
The image rewound like a VHS tape - past the fight, past the taxi, all the way back to:
Wade Wilson - Reynolds without the scarring, handsome and cocky sat in a seedy bar called Sister Margaret's School for Wayward Girls.
The walls were covered in weapons, crude drawings, and a "Dead Pool" betting board where the regulars wagered on who would die next.
Behind the bar: Weasel, a sleazy-charming bartender who looked like he'd seen everything twice.
"So what did you do today, Wade?"
Wade was eating pizza, wearing a leather jacket. "Scared the shit out of a teenage girl's stalker."
"How did that go?"
"Great. I followed him around for a week. Showed up at his gym, his work, his mom's house. Made it very clear that if he didn't leave Meghan alone, I would ruin his life in creative ways."
"You kill him?"
"Nah, better. I threatened to email his entire office his furry porn collection."
The audience howled with laughter.
Weasel: "You're a mercenary with a heart."
"I am a mercenary with moderate empathy and good rates. Don't romanticize me."
Then she walked in.
Vanessa - played by an actress Thomas didn't recognize but who had instant chemistry with Reynolds. She sat at the bar, ordered whiskey, and made eye contact with Wade.
She sat at the bar, ordered whiskey, and made eye contact with Wade.
"What do you do?" Wade asked.
"I am an escort."
"Cool. I kill people for money."
"That is cool."
What followed was the weirdest, most profane courtship Thomas had ever seen. Wade and Vanessa comparing childhood traumas like trading cards:
"Foster care at seven." Vanessa said.
"Orphaned at nine." Wade countered.
"Juvie at fourteen."
"Dishonorably discharged from Special Forces at twenty-two."
"You win. That's worse."
They clicked instantly - two damaged people finding each other in the wreckage.
The montage of their relationship was set to 'Careless Whisper' and featured everything from skee-ball to sex to celebrating holidays to building IKEA furniture while arguing about the instructions.
It was romantic, raunchy, and genuinely sweet.
The couple to Thomas's left was holding hands now.
Time jump: "11 MONTHS LATER"
Wade and Vanessa in bed, post-sex, talking about the future.
"We should get a place." Vanessa said. "Something with actual furniture that doesn't collapse."
"I am a mercenary. You know my job security is terrible."
"So get a different job."
"Doing what? I am not exactly qualified for office work."
"Then we will have to figure it out, together."
Wade smiled, kissed her. "Okay. Together."
Then he collapsed after the diagnosis.
Doctor's grim face: "Mr. Wilson, you have advanced cancer. Liver, lungs, prostate, brain. It's... extensive."
Wade sat there, processing. "How long?"
"Months, maybe a year with aggressive treatment."
"And treatment would do what, exactly?"
"Buy you time. But the prognosis isn't good."
Vanessa's reaction: "We will fight it."
"There's nothing to fight. I have got maybe a year."
"Then we make it a good year."
But Wade couldn't do it.
He just couldn't watch her watch him die.
The scene where he left - sneaking out in the middle of the night, leaving a note - was heartbreaking.
….
A man in an expensive suit approached Wade outside the bar one night.
"Mr. Wilson. I represent an organization that can cure your cancer."
"Fuck off."
"I am serious. We've developed a process that activates dormant mutant genes. Gives people powers, heals terminal illnesses. You would be superhuman."
Wade stopped walking. "Bullshit."
"Not bullshit. We have done it dozens of times successfully."
The recruiter showed photos - before and after images of people with powers, looking healthy.
Wade, desperate and dying, agreed.
He left Vanessa a note: "Had to leave, don't look for me. I am sorry. I love you."
….
Cut to: The Workshop.
A grimy facility that looked like a converted warehouse. Ajax - British, cold, sadistic - ran the operation with his assistant Angel Dust, a super-strong woman who clearly enjoyed the work.
"Welcome, Mr. Wilson," Ajax said. "The process is simple. We stress your body to extreme levels. This activates latent mutant genes, you develop powers and survive. Everyone wins."
"And if I don't have mutant genes?"
"Then you die. But you're dying anyway, so..." Ajax smiled. "What do you have to lose?"
What followed was a montage of systematic torture that made the audience shift uncomfortably.
Suffocation chambers, electrocution.
Days without food or water and chemical injections that made Wade scream.
Ajax watched it all with clinical detachment. "The body needs to think it's dying. That's what triggers the mutation."
Wade kept his humor as armor: "You know... this is really... not as fun... as the brochure suggested..."
Days passed with no powers developed but just suffering.
Then Ajax revealed the truth:
"Oh, did I mention? The cure is a lie. We're creating super-slaves. Once you develop powers, we sell you. You will spend the rest of your immortal life working for whoever pays the most."
Wade's rage was absolute. "You motherfucker—"
Ajax sealed him in an airtight chamber, cut the oxygen to near-zero. "Let's see if asphyxiation works."
It did.
Wade's mutation triggered - but wrong.
His entire body became a mass of scar tissue as the cancer and healing factor fought for dominance. His skin bubbled, reformed, scarred over completely.
He survived. But he looked like a walking burn victim.
When Ajax opened the chamber and Wade saw his reflection, he screamed.
"WHAT DID YOU DO TO ME?!"
Ajax smiled. "I made you immortal. Ugly, but immortal."
.
….
[To be continued…]
★─────⇌•★•⇋─────★
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