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toxicrelief · 3 months ago

Text

Crawling Back to You

Chapter Two

Synopsis: Meeting new people is one thing, meeting new coworkers is another. Cecil has tasked you with "making nice" with the members of the Guardians of the Globe. One member in particular has already decided he hates you.

Pairing: Rex x F!Reader

Word Count: 3.6k

Chapter: 2/?

Masterlist of all Chapters

TW: Blood

Note: This is day one, so a few months before the first chapter. Less tension this chapter, and much more exposition that will hopefully aid the oncoming angst. I worked really hard to properly characterize every character! Hope you enjoy!

What an asshole. Your first day in an actual team and you were already regretting it.

“Ignore him, I want you to go and familiarize yourself with the other members. Keep your earpiece on. I want you to continue training afterwards.” Cecil’s gaze swept over the Guardian’s headquarters. With a nod to you, he turned and walked away, surprisingly he actually walked and did not just teleport. Maybe the GDA is trying to save money.

From what Cecil had been telling you the Guardians of the Globe is an embarrassing mess right now. The Immortal recently had taken over the leadership position from Robot who could not seem to get his head in the game. You had spent an ample amount of time reading over their individual files, but your eyes stopped on someone who you had not gotten the file of. He was wearing an orange and blue suit and just sort of…poking something over in the corner?

You scanned the large area one last time, taking note of where everyone was, mentally ordering them all in your head. You would definitely save the one you knew as Rex-Splode for last. After his piercing glare and a very annoyed “Fuck, another one? Sure, why not just add her to the team, apparently it is a free-for-all around here anyways!” He had turned away throwing his hands in the air “Christ, four newbies in a row.” And some other unpleasant grumbling.

With a subtle curl of the lip at the memory of the very fresh experience you walked over to the first member you decided you would introduce yourself to. As you got closer you could hear him muttering to himself, “Very perplexing…”

“Hello-” He was poking a coffee machine it seems, and you apparently activated his fight or flight unknowingly because he just chucked it at you. But it was plugged in… so it just kind of slid off the counter and hung there. The glass pot shattered on the ground and water washed over the front from the water reservoir. If you were not determined to make the best impression anyone has ever seen, you would have just let out a sigh so long your lungs would have completely depleted.

“Oh, I’m sorry I did not mean to startle you!” You said apologetically, scanning the area for a broom or something to help clean up, but you were extremely unfamiliar with your surroundings here, so you just decided to ignore it.

“Oh, no harm done fellow human!” Oh boy, so he’s one of those. “Rest assured it is meant to do that!”

You stood in silence and looked down at the mess between the two of you.

“Indeed.”

You looked around hoping too many eyes were not on you but as far as you could tell there were none. Too busy with what they were all individually doing, a few of them had left the common space, probably to go to different rooms for training. Cecil told you they were staggering training schedules so that they could all “become the best they could be” and then rather melodramatically he continued “If not, we could all be fucked.”

Theatrical as always, but you knew after the months you had spent training with Cecil there was no reason to inquire about his cryptic statements. If he wanted you to know, he would tell you.

“Well, I just thought I would introduce myself. I have not heard anything about you, are you some kind of secret?” It was meant to be a light joke to ease tensions. But the man froze and for a second you considered just walking away. There must be something wrong with him.

“Secret?!” He laughed obnoxiously loud, and you found yourself snapping your head to look around once again for judgmental looks. “You will find no secrets here! I am just as human as everyone here! And having secrets from human teammates is bad for morale!”

“Okay… I’m Killdeer by the way, or that’s my alias or whatever,” You told him your actual name as well and held your hand out for him to shake. It was like you could hear the gears grinding inside his head. After several more moments he awkwardly did a crouching sort of movement and high-fived your outstretched hand.

Around right now is when you are wishing you had someone you could talk to about this exact moment. Your eyes trailed up from your hand to his face which held maybe the largest, cheesiest grin you have ever seen. You bit the inside of your lip trying to stop a violent snort from escaping you. What the fuck.

“I am Shapesmith!” He put his knuckles to his hips and puffed out his chest, a very generic hero pose. “I was born a baby human right here on the planet of Earth! I got my superpowers from a random…industrial accident-”

“What happened to the coffeepot?” A very unenthused voice spoke from a few paces behind you. This face you knew from the files, Bulletproof, who is also very new to the Guardians of the Globe. Within the past few days even.

You gave him a shrug while glancing at Shapesmith out of the corner of your eye. Who was, at this point unsurprisingly, still smiling larger than life and holding his pointer finger up.

“Great.” Bulletproof sighed and started to walk away. Target number two.

“I have to go, but it was good meeting you Shapesmith and I look forward to working with you!” You winced at your business email sounding goodbye, but it did not seem to bother him any. He just returned to looking at the glass and water conversation piece on the floor.

With a few quick strides you were caught up again with Bulletproof, who slowed to a stop when he realized you were following him.

“I wanted to introduce myself, but first-” you glanced back at Shapesmith “What exactly is going on…there?”

Bulletproof shrugged and glanced at Shapesmith for a few moments. “I honestly have no idea; he was found impersonation Rex-” ugh. A subtle reminder that eventually, you had to formally introduce yourself to him. Your attention returned as quickly as it left. “I don’t think anyone knows exactly what or who he is. But Cecil probably likes the opportunity of keeping an eye on him here.” He looked back at you again. “I cannot imagine he’s much danger to us; he’s kind of…”

“Eccentric?” You interjected.

“I was going to say idiotic, but sure.” Shapesmith was now trying to pick up the glass shards with his bare hands. Idiotic felt a little too mean in your opinion. He seemed nice enough.

“Well anyways,” you held your hand out again and gave your name “you’re Bulletproof, right?” After a nod, he took your hand and actually shook it rather than what ever it was Shapesmith did. Thank god. “Pleasure,” this is all very formal and as the conversation goes on your mind wanders a little.

Shapesmith, Bulletproof, Monster Girl, Robot, Duplikate, Immortal, Black Samson, Shrinking Rae, Rex Splode. Shapesmith, Bulletproof-

Where did Rex Splode get off? He didn’t even know you or anything about you. You were not sure why this was bothering you so much. Sometimes people just suck, this was nothing new to you. An immature part of your brain imagined exploding him with your mind. Which is a little drastic for the fact he really had not committed that high of an offense. You were just a little nervous to be around other superheroes and he immediately took your ego and, well you guess, exploded it. Also, you could not explode him with your mind if you wanted to. But maybe he would accidentally self-combust later. A small smile appeared on your face at the thought of it.

Okay now this is just mean, how is this productive?

You look up and nod at what Bulletproof is saying, having no idea what he was just talking about the last few minutes. If it was important, you would find out later you supposed. After a formal and quick goodbye, you headed over to another corner where Immortal, Duplikate, Black Samson and Shrinking Rae were standing and talking. Again, a quick introduction, and polite conversation. No one seemed to take much interest in you, which you figured might be the case when you had to start making your rounds around the headquarters.

Cecil said that he had told Immortal about you in passing, but while talking to him you realized he knew nothing about you. Not to his disappointment though, you doubted he would remember your name without being reminded a few times. He seemed to have a bit of a superiority complex which, maybe you would too if you were alive that long. But still, you did not much care for him. Shrinking Rae, who assured you that you could call her “just Rae” seemed very down to earth out of the three of them. After filling that information away in your brain for later you headed out of the main area in search of the last three members.

While you were at it you tried to familiarize yourself with the different passageways, one room led to a gym, another to a kitchen, and…another kitchen? Or were you turned around? Well now you know where the broom is, maybe on the way back to the common area you would bring it with you for Shapesmith.

Finally, you found yourself in a circular, expansive room. Robot sat in the middle, a large hologram of what you imagined must have been a brain above his head. Common sense leads you to believe it is probably his. Is he still called Robot if he’s not in the suit? Crap, you had read his name in the files, but you could not remember what it was.

In a chair nearby sat Monster Girl, they seemed to have been talking about something before you walked in but once your presence was noticed they both were looking at you.

There’s a certain uncanny feeling to being stared at by two people with the appearance of essentially children. Like walking by a middle school and hearing the most creative insults you have ever heard, which will also subsequently keep you up for several days going forward. Luckily these two were not actually children or you would be feeling much more apprehensive being viewed under such scrutiny.

“Hello-” How many more times are you going to have to introduce yourself? You would much rather be training with Cecil than working your way through small talk with these people who think you are unnecessary at your core.

“Killdeer?” Monster Girl, who assured you that you can call her Amanda and Robot, Rudy, asked quizzically.

“A type of bird, correct?” Rudy said in a dry tone, which you could not tell was just due to the way he naturally was, or if he was extremely unimpressed. Hopefully the former.

“Yes. The bird.” You give a tight smile.

“They are known for pretending to be injured to draw away predators.” Rudy tells Amanda, “So they are notable for being unassuming, is that what you are?” Wow straight to the important questions.

“Notable? Well, I hope so-” You tried to joke.

“Unassuming.” He spoke again in that dry, robotic tone. Oh, Robot, robotic, that makes sense.

“Birds don’t have superpowers.” Said a voice from behind you, one you recognized the fastest out of all the Guardians because of his memorable first appearance. You did not bother looking back.

“Your point being, Rex?” Amanda said with a level of exhaustion that mirrored yours, but she was probably much more licensed to her exhaustion having known him longer than a morning.

Sure enough, Rex stepped up next to you, his arms crossed, a firm crease in his brow. “My point is just that it’s a stupid name.”

“Seriously? What do you want man?” Amanda mirrored him, crossing her own arms, while Rudy simply cycled through looking at them.

Rex ignored her and looked directly at you. Well at least you did not have to do another introduction. At this very moment, looking between him and Rudy you started to wonder if they were somehow related. You read in Robot’s file that he only recently started fronting as a physical person, but there was not much else provided about it for you. Something to look into later.

“What do you even fuckin’ do anyways?” Rex tilted his head at you, squinting slightly. An expression that almost looked suspicious of you.

“I, uh, heal.”

“Oh, you ‘uh heal’. I am so glad we got that covered!” Rex said with a big sarcastic smile, looking to both Rudy and Amanda for backup. “I mean come on! Don’t you guys see how ridiculous this is? I feel like I am going crazy! What is Cecil thinking?”

You raise an eyebrow at him and wait, trying to see if he will just wear himself out and go away. Your original aspiration to try and maintain good standings with everyone on the team faded more with every syllable he uttered.

“We already have all kinds of high-tech what’s-its here that we can get treated with after battles. I should know, I have had to be put together plenty of times after fights. We do not need Nurse Joy over here. You are pointless.” Nurse Joy?

“If you have ‘had to be put together plenty of times after fights’ then-” you made air quotes “I think that speaks for why Cecil thought I was necessary. My powers also run based on biological components, so it is less resources for the GDA to provide.” You looked at Rudy and Amanda while saying this. “Less Band-Aids for your boo-boos. Or I suppose less expensive bioengineered replacement parts.” You shrugged. “I cannot make you regrow a limb, but I am able to speed up your body’s natural healing process so that you guys are down for shorter amounts of time.”

“You hear that, Rex? No regrowing limbs, I am guessing that means she can’t change your micro either.” Amanda laughed; Rex did not look amused.

“Oh great, I will make sure to give you a call when I get a fucking papercut.” Rex rolls his eyes, his arms coming unfolded. “I feel like there is something that could be said about taxpayer dollars and you wasting them by being on the team, somehow, am I right?” He looked to Rudy for support.

“You pay taxes?” The joke slips out before you have enough time to think about how childish it is to sink to his level. He obviously has no intention of listening.

“Technically Rex, if Killdeer can do the things she is stating, it would save on taxpayer money because of fewer hospital visits, and in theory less damage to property. If we are all field-ready quicker after fights, then we can be much more effective. In turn, less damage all around.” Rudy says, his hand resting against his chin. He had practically just repeated and reworded what you just said, but if that’s what it took to get to Rex then whatever.

Rex grumbles a bit but seems to not have an argument against Rudy’s point. “Well, I do not like it.”

Noted.

An awkward silence fell over your small group, but Rex did not seem like he had any intentions of walking away. Like a true savior, you heard Cecil over your earpiece.

“Okay, meet and greets over, head back.” Short and simple but in that brief sentence you were freed from this conversation.

“Well, it was nice to meet you Rudy and Amanda-” You gave them a polite smile, then glanced at the third participant “Rex.” You offered him the smile as well, to which his lip curled slightly, but he did not say anything, and he did not look away.

And just like that you turned around and headed back, having a bit more of a concept of how to get around without getting confused. You grabbed the broom while heading back to the common area only to see that there was no mess anymore. In fact, there’s a whole new machine from the looks of it. That was fast. You would never get used to the amount of invisible agents that Cecil keeps around, sometimes you could swear you felt them around you.

“Alright I want you to practice on this”

“What the fuck is that?”

“It’s called a ReAnimen,” Donald interjected between you and Cecil.

“Does that thing even have…blood?” You looked at it with a clear repulsion on your face. It looked like a corpse. Come to find out later, that was exactly what it was. It looked evil, with defined teeth and a large red eye in the center of a golden headpiece. The red was not illuminated so you desperately hoped that meant that it was powered off.

“Usually not really,” Cecil admitted with a shrug, “but this was specially engineered for you.” He walked up to it, cocking his head slightly. “And it is disconnected from any power source, so don’t worry about it waking up.”

Waking up, like it was alive? You felt very uneasy at this. Cecil had employed you several months ago, but what you had mostly been working with had been blood bags. Causing ripples that sort of thing. This was a whole body.

“Okay.” You finally said, which in turn led to Donald and Cecil gearing to leave you alone in the room with it. “Wait-”

They both paused.

“Why do you want the Guardian’s to think I am just a healer?” You asked, the question had been ripping you up all day. Cecil paused and gave a glance to Donald who nodded back and left the room.

“You are a healer kid.” Cecil says simply.

“But I am not just a healer.” You squinted at him. He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment.

“After everything that has happened, with Nolan, Omniman, and how instable everything has been, I think it is good to have it not publicized.”

“Even to the Guardians of the Globe? Didn’t you approve of each member yourself?”

“I approved of Nolan too.”

Right…

You nodded and turned your focus to the ReAnimen, the sound of the door alerting you that Cecil had left.

Closing your eyes you took a slow breath, trying to clear your mind.

Shapesmith, Bulletproof, Monster Girl, Robot, Duplikate, Immortal, Black Samson, Shrinking Rae, Rex Splode. Shapesmith, Bulletproof, Monster Girl-

God, what was Rex’s deal? You opened your eyes and tried to feel the blood within the subject in front of you. It’s easy, like a blood bag. You thought to yourself, which did not make it easy.

All you wanted was to make a good impression today and all together you were pretty satisfied with the general outcome. Why was it bothering you so much that one single member did not like you and told you to your face? Get over it.

You could feel a slight twinge starting at the base of your brain. A side effect of overusing your powers in this way. It was very mild right now, but if you overexert yourself too much, your brain would begin to deteriorate. You were able to do much more now because of Cecil’s help and some intense training. But you had woken up in the GDA hospital several times yourself. Luckily it did not take even an afternoon for you to be back on your feet because of accelerated healing. That didn’t change that it hurt like a bitch to feel your brain matter dripping out of every orifice of your head.

This thought process caused you to remember Rex mentioning earlier his frequent visits to the GDA hospital himself. You almost wondered how often you were probably both there at the same time.

Finally, you felt it click, you had a mental hold on the blood inside this over-armored corpse body. Unease filled you as you watched its arm move up and down. This was the first time you had ever manipulated blood within a body. It was unnatural and unsettling to look at. It made quick jagged movements, jolting every time you wanted to test moving it a different way.

“Very good.” You would never get used to how quick Cecil learned things even if you knew about the cameras and invisible agents. Cecil walked up next to you and watched quietly for a moment as you focused on making the ReAnimen sit up.

With severe effort and a piercing pain filling your mind, it sat up. Cecil seemed satisfied.

“I want you to see if you can do anything with this once you have taken a break. And do take a break, it’s inconvenient to constantly clean your blood off the floors.” Fair enough. You took your focus off the ReAnimen, and it landed with a thud back in a resting position. Cecil stepped forward and placed a blood bag near the ReAnimen’s head on the gurney.

“I thought I was done with blood bags.”

“I just want to cover all of our bases.” He says briskly, walking out once again.

You stepped forward and took the blood bag in your hand. Just by holding it you could feel the lack of neural connection you had to it. Was it synthetic blood? You were only able to connect with biological matter, what was Cecil doing?

You flipped the bag over and read the label, usually, the name was some rando. A GDA employee, or just some donator who probably thought this was going to be used for much more good than this.

M. Grayson.

Now that was a file you had read top to bottom.

This was Viltrumite blood.

Author's Note: Yes the Nurse Joy nickname is because of Pokémon. I hate the use of Y/N so I am determined to completely avoid it with either the use of her superhero name or nicknames courtesy of Rex.

Also I love Shapesmith so much he's so silly.

Divider credit: @/ saradika

Chapter three

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assassin-artist · 4 months ago

Note

Mild obsessed with Mercy and I wanna know more about her! What would you say her relationships with other heroes is like? Namely the current Guardians roster.

A couple of doodles to go with the answer (:

I talk about the events of the show including the latest episode (3x07) so don't read if you aren't caught up!

-immortal - bad. immortal started off with warning her that he's watching her every move, similar with mark. he doesnt trust the twins because he never trusted omni-man, and his distrust was clearly justified after the events of the first season. she thinks he's an egotistical asshole who doesn't care about anyone else because of his refusal to become attached to his teammates, he thinks she's a time bomb waiting to go off just like her dad and brother. more than anything, though - she hates that he keeps comparing her to her father. her dad is one topic that she's sensitive about and can get temperamental if he's brought up. she tries to just stay away from immortal most of the time because she's confident she'd just start fights with him every other conversation.

-black samson - okay! samson, to me, has the vibes of a guy who's trying to hold the team together as best as he can. he's a charming guy who seems to care about them, and he does his best to get to know each of them. mercy isn't part of the guardians of the globe roster, but she works with them often enough that he probably considers her an honorary member or something. mercy is pretty closed off to others trying to 'take care of her' because she's trying really hard to be seen as independent and mature, so i think she shakes his concern and compassion off most of the time. not too rudely, though - she appreciates his attempts to be friendly. she just wishes he'd be friendly in a 'this person is my ally and teammate' way instead of in a 'this is a child i need to protect' kind of way.

-bulletproof - okayish. i don't think they interact much with each other at all in the beginning. but considering bulletproof is the only other flyer that she works with on a regular basis, i think just them having convos as they fly to and from missions will go a long way to building a rapport - for no other reason than because it's something only they can do. they'd be work friends i think. getting along on the job, but not really talking much off the job. i think they could be good friends off the job too, both of them like art and being a hero, but Mercy is the one who isn't interested in getting to know him further. sorry man, let's keep it all strictly professional..

-rex - close friends. she kind of had a crush on him the first time they met, and then she realized he was dating eve so she backed off immediately. and then she learned he cheated on eve and hated him with a passion for a while. similar to immortal, she thought of rex as egotistical and a complete jerk for a long while. but of course after his near-death experience, he turned his personality around and started being less of an ass, so her opinion of him changed quite a bit. the only person on the team that Mercy actually hangs out with outside of the job - they're similar in age and can talk to each other about their struggles of being abandoned by a parent (or 2 in rex's case). i think it's interesting that they gave Rae and Rex a romance in the show, because if Rex didn't have a romance, she absolutely would have been interested in him again. Well... we know how it ends, so i guess it's better for her that she never let her feelings develop too far...

-robot and monstergirl - bunking them together because Mercy always sees them together so they're basically a duo in her mind. Robot is crazy intelligent and Mercy respects it, but his penchant to talk from multiple copies of his robots kind of creeps her out and interests her at the same time. Kinda wishes she could do that too lol. Mercy feels sympathy for Monstergirl because of her curse, and the few times they do talk they get along just fine. It's just that they don't talk often. They aren't on the same team together and they never interact outside of the job, so there's just not enough there to build a relationship of any kind off of.

-duplikate - they have an okay work relationship, but they're both headstrong people with very different views on things. i think one of them might throw a jab at the other and that's all it would take to start a fight between them. they do NOT talk outside of work, and in fact, only talk during work if they have to communicate during a fight. in the headquarters? they're not really interacting at all. Mercy rolls her eyes when she learns that Kate and Immortal are getting married because "yeah of course the asshole is marrying an asshole".

-shrinking rae - not as close as Rex, but Mercy and Rae could definitely get along pretty well. maybe if we get to learn more about Rae in the show I could see them being friends outside of the job as well, but for now they're just close coworkers.

-darkwing ii - lastly, darkwing 2. crush material, but very slow buildup. she didn't go on that mission when Mark took Darkwing in for murder, she only heard about it second-hand from Mark himself, so that might be why she's way more forgiving of his issues than she is willing to be for Sinclair(she saw Sinclair's labs and victims personally). she still thinks he's unstable in the beginning and generally avoids him for a while, which he definitely notices, but i think all it would take is one comment from him talking about his remorse for what he did, and she might be willing to stay and talk it over with him. a short debate about morals turns into a longer conversation about regrets and what they would change if they could go back... about how the things they've seen and done has changed them forever. i think the two of them could be very good friends.. and maybe more (: such a shame he disappeared so fast in the show, but maybe id change the story a little bit now that Mercy is here to save the day, heh...

Edit: I CANT BELIEVE I FORGOT SHAPESMITH.... He's my personal favorite hero on the guardians team, which of course means Ellie is going to like him too (: Another rare instance of Mercy allowing this coworker to hang out with her outside of the job. I think she'd be really interested in learning about his life on Mars, and in return she'd help him acclimate to life on Earth. Always bringing him little trinkets or candy from a dollar store, stuff like that lol. They would be the best of friends, I swear. He's not the best person to go to when she's looking to vent her frustrations about life and her issues, but he's always there to listen anyway, and she appreciates that.

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