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Hotguy sat at the edge of some apartment building somewhere. Nowhere important, he thought. He didn’t move, aside from the subtle shift in his posture when he breathed. His feet dangled over the edge and he felt the cybernetics in his legs working to adjust to the weight of weightlessness.
He didn’t indicate much of anything as a vigilante landed soundlessly onto the roof. Only a slight shift of his head when the man called out to him.
“Hotguy?”
Cuteguy wiped the dust off of his shorts from his less than ideal landing, and stretched out his wings to make sure no dust had entered them either. He craned his neck to try to get a better look at the downcast hero’s face, but to no avail. Cuteguy plopped himself down next to Hotguy, leaving enough room for in case he needed a quick escape, and immediately started up their friendly banter.
“Aww, did you miss me that much? I wasn’t gone that long was-”
“Did you hear about the university incident?” Hotguy cut in, his voice low. He didn’t look over at the vigilante.
Cuteguy faltered. The immediate thought of ‘does he know?’ flashing through his head. Hotguy wouldn’t ask something like that without it being a loaded question. Was this some sort of investigation? He turned to the hero with what he hoped was a neutral expression.
“Yeah…I heard about it on the news. You did…good.”
Hotguy didn’t comment on the uncertainty in the vigilante’s voice.
“Why do you ask?” Cuteguy tried to keep up the unbothered facade, but was still trying to get his mental turmoil under check. Hotguy had thrown him for a loop.
Hotguy was quiet for a minute before softly replying, “No reason.” His shoulders sagged somehow further, but Cuteguy wasn’t one to judge.
Cuteguy didn’t know what to think now. Hotguy was acting strange and asking questions that he knew Cuteguy shouldn’t be interested in. But of course he was.
“Okay?” Cuteguy quirked an eyebrow, trying to regain some sense of normalcy, he stood up and planted his hands on his hips, surveying the streets below. “Where do you wanna go first tonigh-” *hic*
Cuteguy was cut off by a small, almost imperceptible, hiccuping sound. His eyes widened and he turned back to the hero. ‘Did he make that noise?’ Cuteguy thought. Hotguy sat on the ledge of the apartment building with his head in his hands. His shoulders shook as more quiet sniffs and hiccups left him.
Cuteguy froze. The man in front of him was the city’s greatest hero. The one putting in ridiculous hours to rid the city of crime. This was a man. Just a man. A man feeling something that Cuteguy had long since left behind when he chose vigilantism. Guilt. Cuteguy’s wings closed in so as not to spook him.
Hotguy pulled his knees in on himself and wept silently. For everything Cuteguy claimed to be, he was not a sympathetic person. He wasn’t good at calming his cousin when he scraped his knee, he wasn't good at comforting distraught civilians, and he wasn't good at helping crying people.
He slowly walked back towards Hotguy the way you would approach a stray cat on the street.
“Hey,” he held his hands up so as not to spook the hero, “what’s up?” Internally, Cuteguy cringed at himself, but he didn’t know what else he could say.
Hotguy put his hands under his mask to wipe away tears. Cuteguy looked away. Now was probably not a good time to peek under the goggles that shrouded the hero’s face.
“It’s…nothing.” Hotguy hesitated, choosing his words carefully.
“It’s not nothing if it’s got you like this.” Cuteguy gestured to the sunken posture of the hero.
“It’s just…hah… back in the university, I...shot at a civilian.”
Cuteguy froze again. He knew this story. Well, at least, a part of it. He knew this from the civilian’s perspective because he was the civilian that day. He remembered seeing his body do things that he couldn’t control, he remembered Hotguy swooping in with Tango and saving the day, and he remembered getting shot. The searing pain of it as a signature blue and orange arrow pierced his shoulder. He couldn’t control his body, but whatever was controlling him granted him the respite of letting him scream in pain. He gained enough control to let his cousin go and push Hotguy away.
Cuteguy knew this story all too well from only one side. Hotguy continued.
“I pulled his file after the whole thing. He was just a teacher. A smart, witty teacher who grew up in a foster home with his cousin.” Hotguy put his head back in his hands. “Why did I hurt him? He couldn’t control himself.”
Cuteguy stared at the back of the hero. He had never once considered that the face that smirked at him for every hospital visit was masking guilt. He never thought for a second that the city’s greatest hero felt any remorse for his actions. But now he saw him. Not an untouchable force, but a broken man who has yet to become numb to the violence.
“That wasn’t your fault.” The words shocked Cuteguy even as he said them. “ You were just following orders, disarming a hostile.” Cuteguy sat next to Hotguy again, this time, not caring about the gap. “You did what you had to do to save everyone else.”
Hotguy didn’t make any move to speak. He just continued to watch the people make their way home after a long day. He’d had a long day. A long week. A long year. Hotguy knew, deep down, that he was just following orders. But part of him saw that look on Grian's face. Saw the way he twisted and writhed before getting them out. He knew that Grian wanted them to be safe, or else he wouldn't have let them go. Part of Hotguy yelled that he shot an innocent man in a bad situation.
Cuteguy piped up again. “You know-” A radio crackled.
“REPORTS COMING IN, WE HAVE A HEIST ON 23RD STREET, WE NEED ALL AVAILABLE UNITS TO RESPOND.”
Before Cuteguy could protest, Hotguy was already standing. That same grin on his face that Cuteguy had seen a hundred times before.
“Welp, duty calls Birdie! I’ll race you there!” He jumped to a nearby building with the same pep in his step that Cuteguy had always taken for granted.
Cuteguy was left alone on the building to think for a moment before launching himself after the hero, quickly catching up.