tushanshu | nine : you feel hollow so you crawl home

When did you get your powers? [Hayley thinks about it for a moment, then chuckles a little.] Don't tell me you seriously did the whole public school thing and prom and all those teenage dreams?

Right before my 17th birthday. [He snorts.] Of course I did. Reginald VelJohnson High in Maryland. Do you know how I found out I even had powers? The trash I was throwing out during my shift at the Burger Mart the flew into the stratosphere. [...Or something.]

Wait. [Hayley lifts her hands as if to encourage him to stop and stay there, despite his not actually moving. Her mouth drops open in genuine surprise before curving up into another smile.] You seriously worked at a burger place. And went to Reginald VanGelson or whatever.

[Best. imagery. ever.]

[But then she drops her hands, grin on her face, and thinks about all the possibilities. For once, she seems less like the calculating villain and more like a normal teenage girl. It's easier to forget everything else for a minute or two.]

Did you have to keep the job as like, a cover? Did you go to prom? Did you have to tell your girlfriend? Wait, what powers do you even have anyway? I think I asked you before but all I remember is the super speed and super strength and I think you maybe said something about flying? But honestly I kind of get you guys confused sometimes. [Superheroes.]

VelJohnson. But yeah, why wouldn't I?

[His old burger uniform looked more like a prison jumpsuit than a company uniform.]

No, I kept the job because I didn't have powers and my dad wanted me to learn about responsibility. Yes, I went to prom. No, I didn't tell Amber until we were in college after she convinced herself I was a drug dealer. As for my powers, I've got super strength, super speed, super stamina, flight, near invulnerability, and accelerated healing. [He pauses. Was that it? Yeah, that was it.]

[Hayley stares at him with exaggerated skepticism.] Because you're an alien superhero? Not many of those wandering the halls at my school.

[Mostly because superheroes don't exist in her world, but details details. Back to question time.]

No, but I mean, after you got your powers. And wait, I thought you said- [She begins, but glances away as she abruptly cuts off, remembering that his father is a topic to avoid. Without missing more than a beat, she picks up again.] What was the theme of your prom? Did you have more than one girlfriend to tell? What about your best friend? Really I'm asking like, how many people would you say you told who weren't superheroes themselves?

[Then Hayley's thinking about the ridiculous list of powers. If this was a book, she'd consider him too powerful for a single character without the appropriate weakness like blindness or something. But life isn't always like media, is it.]

Wait, what's super stamina? Is that like... [She cuts off and her lips curl into a nefarious little smirk with the innuendo. It's enough to make a girl blush if the girl hasn't already been fake castrating older men.] Neeeeever miiiind. Don't want to know.

Yeah, a half-alien superhero who wasn't actually a superhero until his senior year of high school.

[Yeaaah the dad thing happened shortly after he got his powers.] 90s sitcoms. I have no idea why, I wasn't on the planning committee. Just Amber... My second girlfriend, Eve, is also a superhero. We both happened to go to the same high school, but didn't realize it until after meeting in costume. So... yeah, no need to tell her. William... well William figured it out the second he saw Invincible in person. My mom knows, and Art, and that's pretty much it in the friends and family circle. And non superheroes who know... uh... There's Amber, Mom, Mom's ex-boyfriend Dan, the book lady my mom told... Superpatriot's wife, William, his boyfriend, and Art. I think that's it. [Well, and Cecil, but he's a superhero as far as Mark's concerned.]

Ew. It means I can like hold my breath for hours and punch things without getting tired.

Did you become a superhero right away? How does that even work? I mean, do you just like, choose a codename and get your costume made and go at it or is there like, an Academy or something? Oh- Does the press choose your name for you, like with serial killers?

[It's exciting, okay. Hayley doesn't really get to ask many of the practical questions of superheroes very often. It feels like one of those obvious things they all take for granted.]

Who's Superpatriot? And who are the guardians that you mentioned before? What do they guard?

[Then another smirk, somewhat intentionally trying to rile or test him.] Why ew? You're 20. Just because I don't want to hear about your sex life doesn't mean you shouldn't have one.

Pretty much. That I went at it right away, I mean. Well... I waited like two weeks, then I stopped a diamond heist wearing this stupid homemade getup. Frankly I looked like I could have been the one stealing the diamonds, I looked so dumb. That's when dad saw me and brought me to Art. He gave me some tips on what to do and all, but it was pretty much being thrown into the deep end and learning how to swim. As for my name... I came up with it myself, but the media can totally stick you with one if you don't have one. The blue costume I told you about? Wore it once and they decided I was someone entirely different and dubbed me "Invinciboy."

Superpatriot's a hero out in Chicago, and the Guardians of the Globe are a team of superheroes. The team of superheroes where I'm from. They, uh, guard the globe.

Oh, and no academy's or anything. We just sort of learn as we go along.

Yes, I'm 20, but you're 14. [And just talking about his sex life could get him arrested or something.]

Huh. [She's both impressed by his just going at it - though being nearly invulnerable probably helps - and by his willingness to actually answer her. Even if he's not exactly tight-lipped, it's clear Mark hasn't told too many people about himself and she appreciates that. Maybe even respects it for what it is, given her recent affinity for actually making allies here.]

So did you correct the press or was it like, heroes called you one thing and the press called you something else, or how does that work?

[It's weird to her. Every superhero seems to come from a world with lots of superheroes, never just one or a few. She can't even imagine what it's like.]

[To the latter, she shrugs.] 15. I had another birthday here. And you really think that I don't know everything there is to know?

[Mark's the kind of guy who tries to keep his cards to his chest, but once he comes to trust someone, he trusts them completely.] I think someone yelled out "Invincible!" during a fight and they finally figured it out. I can't remember.

[He shakes his head. Sorry Hayley, that's not going to fly.] My point still stands. Besides, it'd be like talking about my sex life to my little brother. It's creepy. [Even if, sadly, Oliver knows more about his sex life than he'd like to admit. ~~The pitfalls of still living with your mother.~~]

Edited 2014-03-02 23:50 (UTC)

Weird. [All the practicalities are so enjoyable to hear about, but so strange to think about. She's still grinning at him, half nefarious and half out of genuine delight. The distraction is welcome and, without realizing it, this is the happiest and most calm she's been in a long time.]

And whatever. I said I didn't want to hear about. I just don't think you need to be all 'ew' about it either. Sex is a perfectly natural thing, Mark. [She adopts a jokingly informative tone, as if teaching someone younger than her.] When a guy and a girl really like each other, it's a natural progression in their relationship.

[A beat, then her tone is suddenly more serious, possibly exaggerated.] Just tell me how old you were when you lost your virginity. Please? It's hard to know what's normal when movies make it seem like everyone's doing it and people don't really talk about it otherwise. I didn't exactly have an open family dynamic.

[Mark is blissfully unaware of any nefarious thoughts Hayley might be having. He's simply happy having someone he can talk to about all this... someone who hasn't already heard his stories a million times, or someone who lived them. But as the conversation decidedly turns away from superheroic chit chat and into more adult topics... Mark would be lying if he said he isn't getting more than a little uncomfortable with it.]

Yeah, I know. It's not the fact I've had it, or that I don't want to talk about it in general, it's the fact that I'd rather not talk about it to essentially a High School freshman. [He scratches at the back of his neck as he attempts to figure out whether or not to answer that last question.] ...Beginning of my freshman year of college. With Amber. And that's all I'm going to tell you. I'm not kidding when I feel like I'm telling this to Oliver.

[Hayley waits with sincere anticipation to see if he'll answer and gives him a very genuine smile when he does. It's a weird reassurance of their sort of trust or developing friendship or whatever.] And I wasn't kidding when I said that's all I wanted to know.

[She flashes him another grin, then slides past him to move deeply into his apartment.] But! Just because I don't want to know about your sex life doesn't mean I don't want to know more about the rest of your life.

[The girl takes a seat on his sofa, making herself at him, and then smiles up at him: it's equal parts innocent little girl and devious teenager.]

[Mark lets out a breath he didn't realize he was holding. He's totally relieved that she's going to let that part of his life drop.]

Okay, sure. Like what?

Like everything? [She lifts her eyebrows in teasing skepticism. Clearly he underestimates her ability to ask questions that aren't entirely of a prying nature.]

I mean, okay, obviously you don't have to answer what you don't want to, but I want to hear what your best friend was like and how you met Amber and what college was like and- wait, how did that even work with you being a hero and going to college? Did you still work after that or did you get paid to be a hero or how did that work?

Uh... okay. Let me try to answer that in order.

My best friend is William Clockwell. And I'm serious about the "William" part. Don't shorten it or he'll talk your ear off about it. Like "How would you like it if I called you Lili?" I mean, he has a point, it's his name and he call himself whatever he wants, but he's gotten so touchy about it because people always try to shorten it that I had to stop him from punching someone once. [Probably more than once, but he can definitely remember the once.

Mark opens the album and flips through it to find a picture of him and William as kids, playing with action figures in the backyard.] I've known William forever. Like so long I can't even tell you how I met him. I mean, it was in school, but there wasn't any kind of epic story about him saving me from bullies or vice versa or anything. We just sort of... clicked one day and the rest is history. I'd like to say that's because he's a nice guy, but William's sort of a jerk. For example, he immediately asked Eve out the second he learned I wasn't dating her. I know this sounds petty, but I'm pretty sure the only reason he asked her out is because he knew I was interested in her...

He's that guy in the group that just has to say whatever's in his head, no matter how insensitive it may be. In fact, I'm pretty sure his superpower is knowing the exact wrong thing to say to people, and having the balls to say it anyway.

...I even caught him wearing my costume once. I had it washed twice.

But he's also the kind of person who you can tell off for doing that without getting offended, and he's totally okay with you ribbing on him too--all's fair and all that. And I know that no matter what stupid thing might come out of his mouth, he's got my back.

We've always been really close, but with the whole Invincible thing I will completely admit I haven't been hanging out with him nearly as much as I'd like to... or he deserves.

Moving on to Amber, she just walked up to me one day our senior year and handed me her number. Well, it was more like a love letter, but it was mostly her number. We started dating right after my birthday, and we were together about a year.

...College was, uh... well I guess it was cool? I was kind of too busy being Invincible to really go... which is why I got kicked out halfway through my second semester. So uh, yeah... it didn't work. But it's not like I'm all that book smart anyway, and being Invincible's going to be my job no matter what, so...

[Hayley stares at him with skepticism as he describes William. The guy sounds like an asshole with his only redeeming quality being that he has Mark's back.] That's seriously your best friend?

[She doesn't really have many friends back home and none close enough to know her own secrets, so it's not exactly like she's in the best place to judge, but that's never stopped her before.]

Then you dated Eve after Amber, right? How did you meet her? Did William date her first?

[A pause.] And you're totally smart.

[He chuckles.] I realize in hindsight I might have sold William a little short. You just think about one thing and the ball goes rolling, you know? But the blunt thing isn't always bad. He always seems to be able to know exactly what needs to be said and when to say it, even if it's not something you want to hear. He's crazy loyal, and no matter what mischief we got into, I know he'd have my back. Even after I became Invincible. He'd always try to help me make time for Mark when all of my time was getting taken up by world eating dragons and crazy aliens and such.

Plus, he could out-quote anyone with any zombie movie. It's quite the talent.

[He misses William, especially now that he's talking about him like this.]

Eve and I met back when I first started out as Invincible. She was on the Teen Team, and we wound up having a team up--that's when you wind up working with someone else to take down the same bad guy. It's usually a spur of the moment thing, not like a "call-someone-up-and-see-if-they're-free" thing, though those team ups exist too. I thought she looked familiar... and then we ran into each other in science class the next day. William did date her first, and I did date her after Amber, but not right after or anything.

[Feigns insult.] I said book smart.

[Hayley almost envies Mark's ability to recount all the details of his various relationships. He can provide such depth about William and both positive and negative nuances about his dating life. It's the kind of thing she usually creates just to appease the curiosity of others, rarely actually holding much truth to the stories. The truth is weird.]

He doesn't sound so bad then. [Making time for Mark endears William to her the most, probably, not that she's about to admit it. She's not sure if he realizes it, but needing that kind of help humanizes Mark - and other heroes - more than they often want or allow themselves to be.]

Who was the bad guy you teamed up on? And who else was in the team up? So you defeat the big bad and then run into each other in class and then.. you became friends-turned-lovers or started dating then or what? You're not really connecting the events for me.

Oh I'm sure you'd hate him if you met him. [He says that with a smile. He may be a little harsh on William, but that's only because they're that close.]

Uhhh... The Mauler twins? [It takes him a minute to recall the exact fight.] Yeah, the Mauler twins. They were these two huge blue bull-looking dudes that looks exactly the same. Apparently one cloned the other one and they always bickered over which was the original. Heck, I'm not sure either one was the original. Oh god, I remember now. I had pretty much just learned I could fly, and I couldn't sleep. I wound up going out flying in nothing but my pajama pants... and ran right into the Mauler twins robbing a Toys B' We for Gameboxes or something. I went to stop them, and the Teen Team showed up. They weren't sure who was the bad guy at first--even though he had the crate of Gameboxes. Wait, no, he didn't. I had knocked it out of his hands by then. Come to think of it, I think only one of the Maulers were there that night.

Anyway, they figured out Mauler was bad and we took him down pretty quickly. And by them I mean mostly me, but I don't want to brag. [He doesn't, he just figures she wants every minute detail.] They didn't seem to mind I was in my pajamas--or at least they didn't say anything. Actually, Eve did, but it was a joking kind of thing. That's when we realized the other looked familiar, but we couldn't place how. Then they left on Rex's--Robot's--flying scooter thing.

The Teen Team was Rex... err, Rudy... Connors, I think, aka Robot, Eve, Rex Sloan aka Rex Splode, and Kate Cha aka Dupli-Kate. Yes, they all did have their names in their superhero names except for Robot. No, no one noticed. They disbanded shortly after they all became members of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Well, everyone but Eve. She had retired at that point to go do some work in Africa.

Speaking of Eve, so when we met she was dating Rex, who was a grade-a jerk, I might add. I mean he was an asshole. [And then he immediately feels bad saying that.] A-at the time, anyway. He got better... but anyway, that's the reason why I didn't date Eve right away. By the time she caught him cheating on her with one of the Kate duplicates... or... I think more than one of the Kate duplicates, actually. Either way, by that point I was already dating Amber, so that's how she wound up hooking up with William. It took some time after we had both broken up that we decided to give dating a shot. [He'd... go into more detail for that, but... it's not a time in his life hew as particular proud of--nearly beating Angstrom Levy to death like that. Even if Levy did deserve it. Okay no that's totally a lie. He doesn't regret literally punching his face in at all. Maybe after the fact, but after the multiple Invincible thing, all bets were off. It made him wish he had actually succeeded in killing him the first time. Plus it involved time travel, and that's always confusing.]

[Hayley's lips pull into a wide smile at Mark's declaration that she wouldn't get along with William. Then she's listening intently as before, appreciating every detail he gives and eating it all up like a kid listening to campfire stories. She shifts on his couch, basically making herself at home. As if she hasn't already invaded his life enough.

The more he tells her, the more she grins, even laughing a little when he comments on the Teen Team's superhero identities. Mark already knows her so well.]

Wait, why was Eve in Africa? And is there like, some kind of graduation ceremony from Teen Team to Guardians or is it like.. you hit 19 and BAM! New group? And was there more than one of Kate or was there like one main one and the others were copies?

No, the uh... the original members... they... they were killed. [He pulls out another picture; it's of a New Years party from the 1984 (as evidenced by the banner in the background) and contains all members of the original Guardians of the Globe.] The Immortal and his former wife. He really is immortal, and that's why it looks like he brought his grandma to the party. The Green Ghost and his wife.... wow, she kind of looks like Monster Girl. Uh, she's Robot's girlfriend. Anyway. That's Red Rush and his wife. Aquarus and his wife, Aquaria. [Shudders. He almost had to marry her.] Martian Man. Darkwing. And War Woman and her partner at the time. [He doesn't really recognize her so he's guessing it's an ex.] My dad wasn't a formal member of the team, but they got along so that's why he's there with my mom.

They were killed by... someone they trusted. [His dad.] After they all died, a new group was formed with Robot in charge. They've changed rosters a few times since then. I honestly couldn't tell you everyone in it now, because I've only really seen them lately for the Really Big Stuff... and that's when pretty much everyone's called in anyway, so it's not like I'm working with one particular team in that situation.

And there's one Kate and the others were copies. We thought she was killed a little while back... the original, I mean. But it was just another copy.

As for Eve... after graduating she wanted to make a real difference in the world, and felt that being a superhero wasn't the way to do it. Her power is really cool... she can rearrange atoms to basically change something into anything she wants. Man, you should have seen the house she made. It was beautiful. Anyway, she felt like she could actually do something good with her powers if she went to places that needed help and helped them, rebuilding drought-stricken areas mainly. She came back to the superheroing gig after I accidentally got her involved in a couple missions and she realized she missed it.

Darkwing. So not the Bat Man. [Because come on they kind of look alike.] And wait, who was that again? [She points to the one who looks a bit like a Flash.]

[She looks over the photo for awhile, her face scrunched up with concentration, as if memorizing every detail. Then she finally returns her gaze to Mark.] Why didn't you join?

Uh huh. So Eve goes to Africa to save the world and then comes back and you "accidentally"- [She does the air quotes and everything.] -get her involved again and then end up together?

Batman? [...Why does that name ring a bell? It feels like it shouldn't ring a bell.] No, just Darkwing. And he had a sidekick, Night Boy. After Darkwing died, Night Boy kind of lost it. He took on Darkwing's mantle and started killing criminals. ...I had to turn him over to the authorities.

[Whoops went off topic there. He looks at where she's pointing.] That's Red Rush. He was Russian.

I was still in high school, I didn't have the time. Then everything got crazy... and I got used to being a solo act.

No, seriously, it was not on purpose. First time she came back after the thing with my mom--again, not something I want to talk about, but she's fine--, the second time was because I got word there was an all hands on deck situation--I used to have an earpiece, I don't anymore, that's a story I'm not comfortable sharing right now, sorry--I asked if she wanted to help, she said yes [Okay, they might have kissed right before that]. Before you ask, I was there to talk about the thing with my mom, because there's not a lot of people you can talk to about personal stuff in the superhero world. [...And because Future Eve might have told him to go for it.] Then she came back to visit Rex when Rex was in the hospital after a fight... and then we got into a fight... and when I went to Africa to apologize I got another all hands on deck call and she came with me then too. Trust me, I would much rather have talked with Eve than... [Makes a fist with his hands.] Something else I'm not comfortable talking about, sorry.

After that we started going out. Africa's like, 5 minutes away for me so it wasn't like she moved back for our relationship. She was starting to have her own doubts about the lasting effects her powers were having on the area. Her heart was in the right place, but it was too ambitious a project.

[Someone who doesn't know Bat Man? Suddenly Mark has endeared himself to Hayley a lot more just by being from a different universe.]

Do you regret it? Never joining them or whatever? [It's a serious question and Hayley gives it the weight it deserves.]

[The topic definitely dredges up the most situations Mark doesn't want to talk about. He might be able to see through her, the way she internally wriggles and squirms with wanting to ask but choosing not to. Externally, she remains still. After a long pause, she stays true to their unofficial agreement.]

Where in Africa? What was it like?

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