Confessions of a Mercenary

by

Captain Deadpool

"Bless me, Father, for I have sinned," the raspy voice sounded terribly weak behind the grille. It also didn't quite sound human; was he a fellow mutant, perhaps? Kurt Wagner, a priest of the Catholic faith despite his demonic appearance and X-Man wondered this to himself. The voice was horribly familiar.

"It has been . . . twenty years since my last confession. I can't remember the last time I attended mass."

"Zat is a very long to wait for absolution."

"I know."

"Why wait so long?"

The shadow still lingered on the other side, but the figure did not speak.

"I understand your hesitation, but remember that anything you say vill not leave this room. You can trust me."

After another silent moment, he spoke up:

"I'm sorry, padre. I just ain't used to talking like this. I guess I never think about it much, and when I do, I think I'm not sure I deserve redemption."

"No vone deserves redemption. Fortunately, ve don't have to deserve it," he said gently, "Please, lay the burden on your heart before the Lord."

"I'm a mercenary and former assassin. I kill people for money, I steal things for money, and I've done a lot of other things worse than that for money. When I was a kid I shot dogs and cats with a BB gun just too watch them suffer and die slowly. I beat up anyone who crossed me. I was lonely."

"When I joined the army after killing my father in a bar fight, I fought without worrying about protecting my fellow soldiers. I could have gotten out of most scraps with less of a body count, but I didn't care. When I became a merc, my first job was burning down a village in Africa. I did, and I enjoyed it. Women and children and everything . . ." his voice drifted distantly, as if under a spell, "I had sex out of marriage more times than I care to count. Oh, God, the sex . . ."

"I've fought and fought until I don't know what else to do," and on that note he finished his rough confession.

Nightcrawler didn't know what to say. This was Deadpool at a confessional! Still, it was his professional as priest to serve the people, even people like him.

'Perhaps people like him need this more than anybody,' he mused.

"Deus meus, ex toto corde poenitet me omnium meorum peccatorum, eaque detestor, quia peccando, non solum poenas a Te iuste statutas promeritus sum, sed praesertim quia offendi Te, summum bonum, ac dignum qui super omnia diligaris. Ideo firmiter propono, adiuvante gratia Tua, de cetero me non peccaturum peccandique occasiones proximas fugiturum. Amen."

"D-dominus," he sputtered, " noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunicationis et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges. [making the Sign of the Cross:] Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."

Both crossed themselves at the same time, and as Deadpool got up to leave he laughed and said,

"Finally figured out it was little ol' me, didja?"

As Nightcrawler sat on the priest's side of the confessional, it struck him that in all the world there was now no human or mutant who knew Wade Wilson better than he did now.