A Whole New World

[mostlyajerk]

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[viber]

Rude.

[mostlyajerk]

Yes, I'm sure you're heartbroken. If it helps, I don't hang with anyone.

[viber]

I'm sure people are missing out on your wonderful personality and warm, sunny disposition. Shame.

[mostlyajerk]

Not everyone can be a people person like you.

[viber]

I love to love.

Open the window.

[mostlyajerk]

Hartley adjusted his hood and quickly scanned the room. He moved to his workshop and pulled down the picture Axel had sent him that he'd printed out, the one Jerrie had drawn of him. It wasn't as if it mattered one way or the other, but the idea of Reverb seeing it creeped him out. He had no time to waste though, so he really had nowhere to put it, ending up simply putting it upside down on the desk before moving to open the window, mask on and hood up.

Waiting for Reverb in his own home. Fun times.

[viber]

Reverb fell through the window in a way that lacked his usual grace but as soon as he started to stand up, it was probably more obvious why he did that. There was blood on his hands, on the front of his shirt and he took a while to get back to his feet, clearly injured. "Don't worry, it's not all my blood. Not that I think you'd be worried." Reverb smirked as he stood there, slightly bent double, looking at Hartley with great amusement.

"Do you hang around your house dressed like this? I like it. You're very invested. So few people are." No one ever took villainy seriously. He was glad someone finally was.

[mostlyajerk]

"No, I got dressed when you said you were coming over." It was actually the truth, but it was difficult to come up with a clever answer while faced with an injured Reverb. He should probably have asked whether he was hurt, not just Axel, but he couldn't change his priorities. Hartley's fingers had gone to his flute without thinking. If only there was value in killing Reverb.

"I have a first aid kit. You can bleed on my couch."

[viber]

"Don't even think of using that on me. I'm injured, not stupid. I'd still attack." Reverb sneered as he limped across the room and crouched awkwardly on the arm of the chair, not willing to make himself comfortable and not really able to. "You owe me for this, I'm only in this mess because of you. You and that idiot, he's never being on my team again."

Reverb was going to invent some easy job where Axel could look like he was doing stuff without ever having to do stuff. Or acting like he stopped existing and hopefully Zoom would follow suit.

[mostlyajerk]

"I told you. The only reason he made it through high school is that I had a crush on him, he's not qualified for anything other than what he's doing." Hartley moved into his bathroom and returned a minute later with the first aid kit and a washcloth. He crouched down by Reverb, lifting his shirt, careful not to hurt him more than necessary. "What happened? Just so I know what I'm looking at."

[viber]

"An alarm was triggered, the police came and while me and Rupture began to retreat to avoid a fight, your dumb idiot boyfriend froze. He just froze like a cat on a road with a car coming at him. And they opened fire. He was just damn lucky I was close enough to him to absorb the impact and get him to cover." Reverb huffed in frustration, he didn't want to cause a scene but it was too late by that point so he and Dante killed everyone in that room except Axel and fled. It hadn't been a great night.

Reverb slapped Hartley's hand down before he could get his shirt any higher, glaring darkly at him. "Ask permission before you touch." He held Hartley's wrist so he couldn't make another reach for it, eyes still on him. "We need to talk first."

[mostlyajerk]

Hartley rolled his eyes and tried to get his wrist free, lucky that his hood was effectively hiding his eyes. He had gotten the first aid kit, he had knelt down by him, but now suddenly he acted like it wasn't obvious that he was about to clean his wound? Whatever.

"I'm sorry. I should have asked permission. Tell me when t proceed." The empty voice came easy these days. "Let's talk."

[viber]

"It's less a talk and more a warning. If you say anything stupid in the next five minutes, I will kill you flat out. Just a fair warning. If you find it simply impossible to not say anything stupid or moronic after that time, don't think I will ever show you mercy." He let go of Hartley's wrist and gave him a final dark warning look, one that showed how much he meant business. Then he lifted his shirt up, pulling it over his head and dropping it onto the floor.

It wasn't what people typically expected and he got that but Reverb learned a long time ago to have no shame and no fears. He was what he was and he didn't care if Hartley knew, it wasn't so much a secret as more something he made sure people who knew never spoke about. Mostly he was just embarrassed that the binder he spent a good few months making bulletproof didn't cover enough surface area, hence the being shot bullshit. A few inches downwards and he'd have been fine. "It went in at the back so there's no point being in front of me. I think it's above my shoulder.

[mostlyajerk]

"I never say anything stupid." And indeed, while Hartley's eyebrows might have gone up a little, he took this in stride. All he did was get up to sit on the couch, gently guiding him to lean forward a little. "It's going to need stitches, but at least it looks like a flesh wound and the bullet went straight through. Also, you have better abs than I'd have thought."

What? It was true. Reverb tended to be very covered, not exactly the tight costume for him. He had nice abs, that was a surprise. Hartley carefully cleaned out the wound, wondering privately why Reverb hadn't gotten top surgery. Probably because he had no time for the recovery or maybe he didn't want it. Both very possible and he wasn't about to ask. Not worth dying over, something like this.

[viber]

"I like to work out." If he didn't then Dante would mock him for being lazy and that would start a contest where they'd inevitably end up trying to out do each other as they always did. In many ways, he owed a lot of what he had to Dante and while he still wasn't in an ideal place, he realised he had much bigger problems to deal with before he could even consider medical issues. With a cocky smirk, he tilted his head back despite the pain and raised his eyebrow at Hartley. "You didn't think I'd be rocking such a good body, did you? I'm very offended."

With an amused little noise, Reverb tried his best not to wince or show any pain as Hartley cleaned his wound. Instead, he focused on mocking. "Like what you see?"

[mostlyajerk]

"Honestly? I just never spent any time wondering what type of body you'd be rocking." Hartley finished cleaning the wound and got the needle ready, knowing he could do a good job and hoping it'd be good enough for Reverb. Maybe he should offer pain killers, but it wasn't as if they'd help that much and maybe that would offend Reverb, assuming he wasn't tough enough.

"Sure. I love seeing bullet wounds, gets me excited." Hartley smiled and threaded the needle, then bent over the wound for the first stitch.

[viber]

"Scars are your thing? Stick around then, I'm going to be covered in them." Reverb took a deep breath and then pulled himself forward a little so he had easier access. He closed his eyes and winced as the needle went in but made no noise, feeling the thread wind through his skin. "I would give you the usual warning of 'if you gossip about me, I'll rip out your vocal cords' but we both know you're smart enough not to do that but I'm obligated. So don't."

He had to do that, to offer the out for them to behave because otherwise Zoom would ask why he killed another henchmen and those talks were never fun.

[mostlyajerk]

"I wouldn't do that even if you weren't who you are. I don't out people." Hartley focused on what he was doing rather than what Reverb was threatening him with. Or not threatening but actually threatening. Same old, same old. "This one might not leave that big a scar. Just four stitches, if you can manage to take it easy, it might not be so bad. I'll bandage it and then you're good to go."

[viber]

"I'm not worried about that, I'm worried about you saying something stupid that will piss me or Rupture off and then one of us will end you." He didn't care if he was outed. What was there to out? He was a guy. Big fucking deal. He didn't feel the need to specify why Rupture would be so pissed off but he doubted he needed to. Rupture was his loyal partner, they'd work together as long as anyone could remember. "Good. Your debt is repaid for saving your moron."

[mostlyajerk]

"I'm not an idiot. What would I say about this to piss you off? You're a guy, so the closest thing I could say that would piss you off would be that you're an annoying guy." Which he was, not that he'd go beyond implying it. Instead he applied a bandage and hoped that this would heal well, because Axel needed to be safe. "I know that he's a liability. He's a moron, you're right. We'd both be better off if he wasn't here to be a bother."

[viber]

"Because people are stupid and they don't grasp that I'm a guy so sometimes I have to beat it into their heads and usually I get very carried away. Last time, Rupture accidentally crushed someone's skull doing it." Reverb laughed in the least pleasant way, clearly amused by his brother's exploits but then, they always had fun together. "All metahumans have to be in our little band of merry men and you know, your moron would have flown under the radar a lot better if he hadn't made that joke to Zoom when he was first recruited." He just had to make a silly nervous joke that Zoom had taken note of. Now he knew who he was and that was never a good thing.

[mostlyajerk]

"Axel makes stupid jokes when he's nervous and Zoom terrifies him." Of course. Zoom terrified everyone. Hartley decided to leave it at that, but it was the first seed. He'd get Axel and them all out of here, to the safest place possible. Then he could decide what to do and how much to risk. "I'm not about to become an idiot, I've been with trans guys, they're guys, you're a guy, I don't differentiate. Not that I'm saying I want to be with you." Great turn of this talk. "Just that I think of you as just as manly as before."

[viber]

"Are you sure you don't want to be with me? I hear I'm a good fuck but I'm an awful boyfriend. I feel there's some biased to that review but just a forewarning." Reverb smirked and adjusted his glasses, pulling himself to his feet and grabbing his shirt off the floor. He pulled it back on and gave Hartley an amused look, slipping his hands into his pockets. "Same level of manly but also same level of annoyance? I love how much you can't stand me. It's fun."

[mostlyajerk]

"I can't stand my life and you're the closest figure even remotely responsible for how it's going. It's irrational, but my anger has often been irrational." Hartley shrugged and leaned back on the couch, looking at Reverb and smiling briefly. No one ever really stayed at his place. He couldn't even remember off the top of his head when he'd last had someone here. Probably Axel at some point. Maybe when he'd been here to pick up Jerrie. It sometimes seemed like it was just yesterday and other times as if a long time had passed. A distant memory. He'd been a different person then. "But if it helps, I'm probably a worse boyfriend than you."

[viber]

"I'm fine with anger. It's a passionate emotion, I like passion. You don't have to love someone to be with someone." What? He hadn't gotten laid in a while and his options were very slim, he was fine throwing that potential out there. He hardly expected much of a response to it, Hartley really didn't seem to like him. At all. "I don't know. I forgot to call my last girlfriend for two months. The boyfriend before that, and I use the boyfriend term lightly, I dumped during sex." Reverb sighed in a bored tone. "He just wasn't very good at it."