Chapter Text
“Do you have it?” Morgan strode into the base of Rex Roofer like he owned the place. It wasn’t like Roofer could touch them; he may be a villain, but he didn’t have that kind of balls.
“Generator, pleasant as always.” Rex rolled his eyes from behind the screen shielding his face as he worked on some of his latest mechanics. “Why do you come to me anyways, we both know you’re fully capable of such a thing yourself.” Taking the mask off he stood up properly, stretching out before walking off to retrieve what Generator was there for.
Morgan scoffed and shrugged, crossing their arms and leaning on a nearby wall. “Haven’t we gone over this? I’d much prefer to do it myself, but you have a specific skill set I needed to take advantage of.” As much as they hated asking favors, it wasn’t like he was having Rex do all the work. They just left out the bit about what they needed would only be a component of a larger project he was working on.
“Take advantage, huh?” Rex snorted, shaking his head. “The only reason I’m doing this at all is because now you owe me one, and that is worth the resources.” The item Rex held as he walked back to the other villain just looked like a regular pair of glasses, but both knew they were more than that.
“Don’t push it, Roofer. Just because you get a favor out of me doesn’t mean I have to like you.” Morgan rolled their eyes, holding their hand out. “Now that we’ve got our agreement, would you hand them over so I can get out of here? How do you even work in a place so dreary, it’s like cave.” He snorted.
“Oh that’s just a part of my brand, keeps unwanted third parties out of my base. At least it usually does.” Rex shook his head, handing the item over to Generator. “And I hope you know you’re insane. There’re rumours you’re going after Superior and the whole Sterling family. I knew you weren’t textbook sane, but I didn’t think you had a deathwish.”
Morgan rolled their eyes for what felt like the millionth time since they got there, pocketing the item in one of the pockets on their pants for safe keeping. “They aren’t rumors if they’re true. Careful, you almost sound like you care, Roofer. And don’t worry, I know exactly what I’m doing.” Morgan grinned but didn’t say another word before turning on his heals and making a smooth exit. Of course, they knew what they were doing, and it was going to work.
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Morgan Stewart did not have a bad life by any means. In fact, he probably had what they’d call the ideal life. I mean there was always room for improvement, but he was by no means about to complain about the hand he got dealt.
As if on cue, Morgan’s phone rang in their pocket, playing a tune they’d designated for one person. “Hey mom, what’s up?” He spoke as he walked down the city streets to their apartment.
“Hey honey, oh nothin, you know, just thought we’d check in and see how things are going? You don’t call you mother enough.” Morgan’s mother, Wendy, spoke in a warm, motherly tone, though it was mixed with the tone of voice a parent uses when they aren’t pleased with something their child did.
His mother was probably the only one that could make him cringe with such a simple sentence. “Sorry ma, I guess I just go a little caught up, lost track of how longs went by.” He chuckled slightly, feeling a little guilty for not calling home as often as they said they would.
“Well, I trust you’ll make it up to me. It sounds like you’ve been pretty busy, how have things been working out for you?” Her tone changed almost immediately to pleasant interest, asking about what he’d been working on.
“Promise.” Morgan chuckled, smiling a little. “Yeah things have been great. Came up with a few new things so far, I’ve just been working on a big project lately. So far so good, piece of pie.” Morgan hummed. ‘Piece of pie’ was their code for ‘I can’t go into detail right now’ since he didn’t want to reveal plans in public when god knows who could be listening.
“That’s good, I’m sure your father will be proud of whatever you come up with. You get your mechanical genius from him you know.” Wendy chuckled into the phone. “You just make sure you stay safe though, you hear? I know you know what you’re doing, but I also want my boy coming back to me for family dinners.”
He’d moved out from his parents’ farm to the city just a couple years ago. Their parents knew about what they got up to, about being a villain. He hadn’t expected them to be supportive but once they found out about it they told them that they were technically villains to. Their mother was retired, and their father was only one on a technicality, but still. It meant they were supportive and encouraging and that was something he was always grateful for. “I’ll be careful, ma. And I’ll stop by next weekend, see you guys, and have dinner, aright?”
“Sounds good! I’ll make your favourite; you just make sure you show up.” Wendy hummed. “I love you honey, stay safe! You father says hi too.” She chuckled.
“Love you guys too.” Morgan chuckled, coming up to their apartment building now. “I’ll see you guys then.” Soon after they hung up and slipped their phone back in their pocket. He did miss his parents, it was nice to talk to his mom again, but they did still have work they still had to get done for today.
Making their way up the stairs, expertly avoiding the few traps they’d installed after becoming the landlord of the building he got up to his apartment and went inside. It was not spectacular by any means, really it looked that of a college dorm mixed with a mad scientist’s lab. Which was honestly kind of accurate, they would be in college if they’d wanted to and they weren’t really a mad scientist, but he was a villain inventor and that was close enough even if they were still just D tier.
He fished the newly acquired piece of equipment out of their pocket and made their way over to their workshop table to get started. What the glasses were are identifiers. For the individual wearing them, when the look at a person a profile for them will appear on the left-hand side with information the wearer can read, typically basic things that would be in any government database like name, age, address, occupation, etc. It didn’t necessarily work to identify a hero’s secret identity, looking at a hero or villain comes up with pseudonym, rank, and tier level. But it was going to be useful to Morgan nonetheless, especially with a few tweaks of their own to the equipment.
It wasn’t going to be hard for them to make A tier. They knew that once they moved to the city, robbed a few places, became a landlord and made D tier. They hadn’t even introduced their engineering genius to the city yet besides using their knowledge to rob two banks, a jewelry shop, and some other places that let him fund their operations. Making acquaintances with Rex Roofer came in handy too when they needed to steal specific materials.
But they had a reason for keeping on the down low for now. They had a more long-term plan they needed a little buildup to, too much too soon could end very badly for them very quickly. But if the heroes think they can get away with their shit without consequences oh they are very wrong. Think someone is a threat because they have a shitty power? Oh, they were about to have another think coming to them. Not to mention it was about time someone called them on their bullshit corruption they kept from the rest of the population.
They may be a villain themselves but that just meant they were uniquely qualified for the job at hand, not to mention the got to fuck with the goddamn Sterling family in the process and that was 90% of why they were doing this. It was going to be a long-con and he was fully prepared for that, in fact strategic planning and execution of a plan was what they did best.