(no subject)
The police scanner has said there was a fire, but he hadn’t listened all that well while hopping out of his apartment shoving on a shoe, and now Zeke had to stop and stare up with his mouth open as the very very large building went up in very very big flames. Swallowing, he ran up to one of the police at the barricade, who was staring and not even eating the donut in his hand anymore. “Are there still people inside?”
The policeman turned, saw his mask, and shoved the donut into his mouth. “Nah, state offices. Closed hours ago.”
“Oh.” That was lucky, then. Damn, that meant he’d gotten out of bed for nothing. Zeke looked back up, trying to decide whether to try and help the fire fighters or to go home and get some more goddamn sleep. He probably ought to stay… but no villains, no people to save, just hoses and ruining his third shirt this week… boring. So he walked off back towards a side street, almost getting halfway around the block when he ran into some civilian jackass standing around staring and knocked him the hell over. “Hey, get the hell out of here! That building might fall the fuck down, didn’t the police clear this area already?”
Damn bystanders, always getting their dumb asses killed on accident. Zeke reached down, offering the guy a hand and then promptly dropping him when he got a decent look. “Fagboy?!”
Merrick fucking Litch stared back in surprise and then picked himself up, brushing off his clothes and glaring. “What the fuck, Zeke? What the fuck are you-- what are you fucking wearing?”
Oh shit. “What? I… Uh, sorry, who are you? I don’t know anyone named Ze--”
“Oh god, are you a fucking super-whatever-the-fuck now? God I fucking knew you had fucking super strength, you asshole. Still abusing your goddamn powers?”
“Hey fuck off, I don’t fucking abuse my powers you annoying asshole. I’m a fucking good guy so fuck off before that fucking building falls on your ugly fucking head.”
The redhead sneered back. “Yeah, I’m sure you fucking care about my goddamn head when there’s people you could be beating up. Still robbing people of lunch money?”
“No, and--” Zeke stopped, as an idea slowly popped up and the other fucking fagboy showed up from around the corner. “What are you jackasses doing down here in the middle of the damn night?”
“What the hell Zeke?” Andy asked stupidly, and Merrick, rolling his eyes, turned to hiss into his ear. “Oh really.”
“Yeah so what the hell are you doing downtown in the middle of the night during a fucking fire?”
“Fag stuff,” Andy grinned sharply, and damn if Zeke didn’t want to punch him in the damn mouth, but he was wearing his damn uniform and heroes just didn’t go around punching bystanders in the mouth no matter how much he wanted to--
“Hey kid! Hero-kid!” Spinning around, Zeke saw the policeman from earlier running up and waving, something in his hand. He stopped, and waited, and waited again when the man had to bend over and breath with his hands braced on his knees. “You’re a superhero, right?”
“Yeah.” There, see, he was. Fucking fags could go fuck off.
“Boys found something across the street. Might not be an electrical fire after all.” The cop stood back up and handed him a piece of paper, folded up tight. Zeke took it, and unfolded it, and spun around with his mouth open to an empty fucking street and two escaped fucking supervillains.
Andy could count on one hand the number of times he’d touched Merrick -- touched anyone -- since he was sixteen. Or he could have, if he were allowed to use his fucking hands. Three in the beginning, when control was shaky and the bastards hadn’t figured out how touching helped and he had the goddamn energy to throw himself against the walls in his mind over and over for hours and days on fucking end. Another two years ago, because the fuckers had broken their own rules and gotten too close, and the sweet hot surge of want was distracting enough to give him a fucking break. And all he’d gotten for that was half-fallen against the taller man, hands splayed over his chest and mouth against his collar, searching for some uncovered skin, before he’d been shoved off and slammed back into his fucking cage. And six something months of panicked worry as a result, until the fifth time and fingers brushed across his wrist one night, crouched and about to go murder some poor fucking refugees dragging their asses to shore. That’d been a bad night.
So now everything was clamped down tighter than ever, dull and suffocating, walls sturdy and confident as the fucking bastard did whatever he fucking wanted with Andy’s damn body completely un-inter-fucking-rupted. And he wasn’t going to fucking give up, because he was still -- somewhere -- Andy Black and even if it was too fucking late to save the world he could still maybe save something of their fucked up pointless fucking lives, but…
But it was a relief when, breaking up the dissent group in some dirty fucking pathetic warehouse, the bullet embedded into muscle and probably shattered his damn clavicle. At the least it meant he couldn’t kill anymore fucking people tonight, and at the best it’d kill the fucking asshole in his head once and for all. The bastard only grunted, perfectly fucking in control of fucking everything, but went down anyway, and Andy shrieked and flailed and slammed through something vital in some moment of distraction. Crashed through into his own mind, floored suddenly by the full force of the pain and the nerves in his skin and the smell of smoke and every little sense that’d been slowly dimmed away from him. And it was still too much at once, even though he kept thinking he’d been prepared, so when Merrick bent over him with a frown and asked a question gone hazy in every other thing he was suddenly supposed to process all at once, Andy only nodded and let himself get scooped up.
Something behind them exploded, loudly, and there were screams of pain and panic, so those people were dead or dying anyway. The noise flickered across his consciousness, distracting and hard to ignore, and between it and the utter fire in his chest the fucking bastard pushed back for control. Andy, though, just leaned against the shoulder holding him up and lifted a hand -- it took less effort than it should have, for all he’d fucking fought and tried and failed to do it a hundred thousand fucking times before -- to twine red hair around his fingers. Merrick -- the agent -- hissed through his teeth, and jerked his head , but his hair was tangled now and he only managed to pull it. “Agent Black, although you are understandably wounded this is highly inappropriate--”
And it had to have hurt, but Andy knew he’d probably be forgiven for it (not that he’d ever fucking know, since he didn’t have even a single finger’s worth of actual fucking conversation since those motherfuckers had used that fucking tazer-thing five years ago), so he gripped his handful of hair tighter and pulled himself up, nearly vertical as his shoulder screamed in protest and suit-clad arms attempted not to drop him. And pressed his mouth against Merrick’s, swiping at his teeth with his tongue and somewhere somehow very startled that he tasted the same.
And then he really was dropped, shoulder exploding in fire and blood against the concrete floor, and blackness swept across him and that fucking bastard.