Work Text:
Pulling open the blinds on his office Xisuma was temporarily blinded by the early morning sun streaming into his office. It had been a long night of working. Crime was always up in the summer months, and that meant a lot of work for the hero agency, and that included informants like him. The sun illuminated a stack of files on his desk, it was about time he started going through those.
The folders seemed like a lot to take in with one sitting, so he grabbed a bit off the top, and set them aside to do first. On top of the stack were the files relating to two of this year's rookie heroes, a duo who had only been in the agency for just over half a year by this point. HotGuy and CuteGuy, massively popular for some reason. Xisuma opened HotGuy’s file first, skimming the contents, his powers, and his background before coming to the contact information, for if he needed to be contacted off duty.
HotGuy, real name Scar Guudtimes, lived in a decent sized apartment not far from a popular park, the file also noted that he had two roommates, but not their names. That was normal for files, confidentiality of the others in a hero’s life. He set it to the side, opening CuteGuy’s file next. CuteGuy’s real name was Grian Emmsea, and lived at the same address as Scar. Xisuma was convinced he had misread this, doing a double and triple take to make sure he was reading things correctly.
He had. He smiled a bit, before looking up the two in another database on his computer. They hadn’t applied together. That made this even weirder. The way the agency assigned heroes to work together, while complicated, apparently didn’t have checks for this, and so it was unlikely that the two heroes even knew the other’s identity.
Xisuma thought back to how the two interacted, and got a small chaotic glint in his eyes. He was so going to mess with these two whenever he could. After all, sometimes entertainment was rare in his line of work, and he needed to get it somewhere.
—__—__—__—__—__—__—
Scar hit the ground hard. Nothing was broken, but he would definitely feel that in the morning. Mumbo was definitely gonna give him a patented Mumbo lecture™ about it in the morning. He sighed, turning back to the fight at hand. Ex was annoying to deal with at best, and CuteGuy seemed mildly overwhelmed at the moment. Glass shards littered the rooftops, as Cuteguy’s potion bottles shattered on impact with whatever they landed on.
“Hey CuteGuy, maybe watch where you throw those, the glass is everywhere.” Scar whispered into his comm as he got back up, watching electronics glitch and become almost portals for the villain to hop through.
“If Ex would just stay still for five minutes maybe!” CuteGuy rebutted as another potion bottle shattered against one of Ex’s screens. The exterior of the Cherry building was a mess now as Scar rushed up to the entrance again, firing another shot from his bow, the arrow piercing one of the screens, as Ex stopped, wincing and glaring at Scar.
“Well he’s stopped now!” Scar whisper-yelled, trying to make his point clear while also making sure the villain couldn’t hear him.
“Thanks, you’re being a great help.” Grian shot back sarcastically, as Ex began to move through his screens again, as Scar tried to track him with his bow.
“Thats rich coming from someone who won’t use his powers,” Scar said, things would be so much easier if Grian just stopped time for a moment, but noooo, the agency had to be strict about it.
“I can’t do that and you know it-” Grian got cut off by a familiar voice.
Their informant’s, Xisuma.
“You two would be horrible roommates,” Xisuma’s voice was casual, clearly he was finding this argument hilarious.
Scar sighed. “Not the time for that, Xisuma!” He nearly shouted back, having to restrain himself from actually yelling.
“Wow, who knew the new kids would be such bad partners?” Ex laughed. The man was still hopping through electronics quickly, and then he stopped. Then Scar realized something at the same time as CuteGuy did.
Their comms were electronics. They had electronics on them.
God fucking dammit.
Scar could hear the telltale click of Cuteguy shutting off his comm, Scar should probably do the same.
But before he could do anything, a glitching noise screamed into his ear, and Scar looked at his left shoulder to see Ex practically standing on him. Suddenly the weight caught up to Scar as his knees buckled, falling from the sudden weight. In that instant Scar could feel his bow being yanked from his hands. The weight left his shoulder as Ex took a step back, presumably to start monologuing, but before anything could be said, the sound of glass shattering and a reddish brown liquid splashing against Ex’s back, causing the villain to yell out in pain.
“Fucking dumbass.” CuteGuy’s voice came into Scar’s comm, as the hero turned it back on.
“I think you got harming on my bow,” Scar sighed.
“Sounds like a you problem.”
“You two need to just live together for a few months, that should iron this out. Maybe over in the Watercreek apartments?” Xisuma’s voice came back in, the man still sounding amused at this.
“How- what?” CuteGuy sounded utterly surprised at the mention of the apartment complex, which is weird, as that’s where Scar lives.
“What? I just named off a nice place.” Xisuma defended himself, as Scar brushed himself off, looking back to Ex, and throwing an arrow straight to the villain's shoulder.
“Let’s get this idiot to the nearest police office,” Cuteguy sighed.
Scar nodded, helping the avian haul Ex to his feet, holding him firmly as they walked the villain quickly to the police station.
Scar’s mind couldn’t help but wonder why CuteGuy sounded so shocked at the mention of Watercreek.
—__—__—__—__—__—__—
Mumbo could tell that whatever job that Grian and Scar had had been a lot last night, as Scar’s legs were clearly injured, and Grian had a large cut across his cheek. What those two did for work was a mystery.
He sighed, turning back to his redstone project, as he drew out a circuit and imagined the electricity running through that, trying to find how it could be used, when a phone rang. More specifically two phones, Grian’s default ringtone contrasting with the custom one Scar had set.
Scar looked at his phone, and Grian looked at his, the two picking them up, and walking to their rooms, muffled talking lingering in the room. Mumbo nearly raised an eyebrow, even more confused at that, when the two came back into the room, grabbing laptops.
Grian had an expression that was annoyed and Mumbo doesn’t think he’s seen Scar look that serious about something before.
“What’s up?” He ended up asking, a bit of confusion present in his voice.
“Work call,” Grian said, not bothering to elaborate.
“Do you two work at the same place?” Mumbo asked.
“No? Why would you think that?” Scar answered, looking up from his laptop. The man walked off to his room, and Grian did the same, leaving Mumbo to figure out why they had work calls at the exact same time.
Meanwhile, off in an office, Xisuma laughed. This would never get old.
—__—__—__—__—__—__—
Grian weaved through the alleyway, Pyro was unlikely to use his powers in a closed environment like this, as it would be too dangerous for him, the problem with that was that Grian also wasn’t good in cramped spaces, because wings take up so much space.
He did know this area well, having some spectacular mental breakdowns in this specific alleyway and buildings, which did make up for the tight space. HotGuy was on the other side of the twisting maze of alleyways, and would ambush the villain, Grian just needed to lead Pyro there.
The problem was Pyro was smart. He kept sending little whisps of flames at Grian’s wings and uniform, threatening to burn him alive almost, and kept pulling Grian back towards the middle.
“Come on, CuteGuy, why won’t you just fight me? Trying to run away?” Pyro teased, his smirk coming through in his tone.
Grian didn’t reply, he just kept moving, he needed to focus. He was so thankful for the fact that he had an amazing mental map of this place. He sighed, looking down the alleyway for a second, scanning for HotGuy, and spotting him. He ran a bit, throwing a potion at Pyro, and from the sound that the villain made, he hit his target.
“You-” Pyro’s voice filled with rage as he now chased after Grian.
Grian picked up his speed, spreading his wings and jumping into the air the minute the walls opened up to the street, as Hotguy shot an arrow at the villain.
“You two seem to know this place well,” Xisuma’s voice caught Grian off guard, making him look around for a split second, before turning his eyes back to the fight.
“Is this why you keep bringing up Watercreek?” Grian asked into the comm, his voice hushed as a blast of fire shot past him.
“I guess,” Xisuma said back, as Scar shot another arrow, trying to catch the flame wielding villain. The arrow swerved unnaturally in the air, as it homed in on the villain, but homing shots aren’t that useful if the villain keeps burning up the arrows.
“Great talk guys, but CuteGuy, I need a bit of help here?!?” HotGuy’s voice cut through the comm, and Grian sighed, grabbing more potions from his seemingly infinite supply. He threw a slowness potion at the villain, figuring that that one would be the least harmful if Pyro’s fire caused it to evaporate into the air, and a fire resistance potion at Hotguy.
Pyro did slow down, the fire turning into a full blown blaze around him. “That’s it you little heroes, time for you two to die,” The villain said, a fire wall beginning to engulf HotGuy and Grian. Grian downed fire resistance himself, before diving into the fray to try and stop Pyro from burning the surrounding buildings down. He latched onto the villain, pinning his hands down, and Pyro growled, but as HotGuy threatened an arrow at the man’s head, and that got his protests to being held down.
“Hot head,” Grian said, chuckling at his own obvious pun, “anyways we need the fire department down here before things get worse,” he said into his comm.
“Sending them as we speak,” Xisuma started, “Don’t want those lovely apartments to burn down.” And Grian swore he could hear the smile in the man’s voice.
“Okay something’s up, you don’t normally say stuff like that when we fight fire users,” Grian said, intending to get this figured out right here, not caring that he was still holding the villain down.
“What are you talking about, are you going to take me to prison or not?” Pryo demanded, snapping Grian’s attention back to the villain.
“Never met a villain that was eager to go to prison,” Hotguy said.
“Rather be in prison than on the ground you idiots.”
As Grian and Hotguy escorted Pyro to prison Grian was sure he could hear muffled laughter on the other end of the comm.
—__—__—__—__—__—__—
Scar stumbled, Bean Boy may be a low level villain, but he was fast, and Scar was having trouble keeping up and not tripping over his own feet at the same time. And the fact that the villain had throwing knives for their weapon. As those were sharp. And that hurt. Cuteguy didn’t seem to be having that problem, as he was flying a short distance ahead and was throwing potions at Bean Boy, missing him most of the time.
Bean Boy ran towards Scar, a throwing knife extended in his hand, aimed for his eyes. Scar dropped to the ground to dodge the knife, picking up a rock as he did so and throwing it at the villain, only he forgot to actually activate his power, and somehow ended up hitting himself with it. CuteGuy’s laugh sounded through the comm, as Scar slowly tried to get up.
“Wow your aim is surprisingly trash,” Cuteguy whispered into the comm.
“Shut it-” Scar whispered, as he looked around for Bean Boy. The villain seemed to just teleport with how fast he was going.
“I’m surprised that that guy doesn’t have super speed,” Cuteguy sighed, before flying up higher to try to find Bean Boy.
“I feel like he does,” Scar grumbled, as he tried to actually use his arrows and power this time to find Bean Boy. Before Scar could even grab one of his arrows he felt a tug followed by cold air hitting his face, as the villain ambushed him from behind.
He put his hands up to his face, realizing his mask had torn in half, the villain holding it. He spun around, throwing the arrow he had ready, and thankfully, it worked this time. Bean Boy fell to the floor as the arrow hit him in the leg. CuteGuy landed behind Scar.
“Finally.” Scar mumbled as he harshly grabbed Bean Boy’s hands, walking to the police station, not wanting for more people to see him without some of his mask. It was annoying already.
CuteGuy followed after Scar, stopping in his tracks as he noticed that Scar’s mask had been ripped.
“Your mask…” CuteGuy started.
“Yeah. We can talk about it after this.” Scar said, walking into the police station.
Cuteguy nodded, clearly not wanting to have this discussion in front of the villain.
And so that’s how the two found themselves on the rooftops of Watercreek Apartments.
“Scar what the fuck?” Cuteguy said, just starting with that, Scar jumped, and looked at CuteGuy, utterly bewildered.
Cuteguy took off his, and Scar regonized him. “Grian?”
And then a laugh from their comms. “Took you two long enough.”
“YOU KNEW!?” The two yelled in unison.
“Yep, since July. I have all of your files, remember?
“Oh my god everything makes so much sense now,” Grian said, “Mumbo’s gonna kill us.”
“Please don’t die you two, you do that nearly every night already.” Xisuma quipped again, clearly holding back laughter.
“I feel like Mumbo needs to know,” Scar said, “I know it’s against the rules, but still.”
“Ehh, I won’t tell. Your friend probably does need to know,”
—__—__—__—__—__—__—
Mumbo stares at his two roommates, the two had just dropped world shattering news.
“YOU WHAT!?” He yelled.
Scar and Grian nodded.
“You two will be the death of me.”