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1.
“In my defense,” ey say then pause and look around at the smoldering remains of what once was a swimming pool. “Yeah, I don’t really have a defense.”
Adel-Captain Judochop rolls her eyes before realizing that there’s no way ey can see her face. “You exploded the pool.”
“There was no one in it! And how was I supposed to know that dumping a bunch of potassium in it was going to…” ey trail off and gesture expansively at the carnage.
“What were you expecting it to do?” Adelaide demands and ey shrug.
“I mean maybe fizz a bit? I wasn’t really sure, but really it’s Doc’s fault because doc’s the one who let me into doc’s lab in the first place!”
She would be rubbing at her brow if she wasn’t wearing a helmet but as it is she just sort of runs her hand down her visor. This sort of thing should be Ruffian’s job and she’s once again annoyed at his continued refusal to do any superhero stuff involving his Blaseball friends, not even being willing to reign them in. “Most people don’t go into a friend’s laboratory, steal a bunch of chemicals and then explode a swimming pool.”
Ey shrug again, more apologetically. “Well I have definitely learned my lesson, etcetera etcetera. Terribly sorry about the mess. Uh, oops my bad?”
“You’re helping tidy this up.” Her tone leaves no room for argument and ey wilt.
2.
“What are you-“ she asks and then wonders if she wants to know. They’re not even technically in her jurisdiction up here. She’s not even Captain Judochop right now.
Andante grins and continues pushing the wheelbarrow full of plants. “They’re being horribly mistreated in there,” ey say. “Look at this soil. Dry as bone.”
She scowls and feels it. Ey’re right but still - “you broke that window.”
“Yeah, but look. Tiny cactus. Are cacti meant to be dry? Doesn’t really matter cause I know strawberry plants aren’t meant to be are you you little strawbebby? Are you, hmm?”
“Are you baby talking that plant?” she asks, raising an eyebrow.
Ey glance up at her and grin. “Positive reinforcement, Adelaide. They’ve had a very rough start to life.”
“They’re plants,” she says.
“Jolene’s a plant! You’d be angry if someone wasn’t watering her - at least I hope you would be!”
Adelaide scowls. “Jolene’s a person. He’s not a - a succulent.”
Andante hums, unconvinced.
“You’re only going to destroy more random shops if I leave you alone, aren’t you.”
It’s not really a question but Andane nods. “Almost certainly, yes.”
She goes into the shop and begins filling up a basket with slightly wilted basil plants.
3.
Kelvin is dripping and shivering and sitting curled up on emself. She’s arranged for the giant ice cube she just dragged em out of to be safely transported somewhere it can melt away to nothing without flooding the district and now she’s left with a possibly hypothermic idiot she’s not entirely sure what to do with.
She’s never seen Kelvin be the victim of one of eir stupid stunts before. There usually aren’t any victims. Just rampant property destruction. Spontaneously generating a giant ice cube with emself at the center using the joint powers of unFire and poor impulse control, nearly destroying eir apartment and threatening to flood eir entire building is both a logical development of the experiments ey and Ilane Snart have been apparently running and also the closest any of eir stunts have come to causing loss of life.
It had been. Well. Tense. Running up and seeing the blurry distorted blue flickering through the still expanding mass of ice, realizing that ey were still in there. She’d had to overclock the blattlizer to just melt a tunnel through and drag em out. Ey’d been completely limp, freezing cold to the touch.
The mute shivering is an improvement on that. At least ey’re sitting up under eir own power now.
She awkwardly shrugs off her jacket and drapes it around eir shoulders and ey burrow into it miserably.
“You good?” she asks awkwardly and ey nod without raising eir head.
“Look, if you need medical attention - I’m gonna call DOWN actually.”
“I’m fine,” ey say. Ey almost manage to keep the trembling out of eir voice. Almost.
Addie prevaricates. “You don’t seem fine.”
Ey don’t look fine either. Greyscale skin and unfire leaping and skipping through her jacket around eir shoulders and as ey glance up at her eir eyes reflect a sourceless blue light.
“I’m just - look, last thing we need is an unFire explosion. I’m gonna call DOWN.”
Kelvin scowls and goes to argue but she’s already pressing in the emergency contact on her helmet.
4.
Cot3 looks at the apparent supervillain who looks right back at her before taking an obnoxious slurp of eir milkshake. The suit wearing wolf-deer-person skeleton behind the counter keeps giving em eyeless glares as ey lean back on a couch and look utterly unconcerned.
Adelaide, who she’s meant to call Captain Judochop now, sighs loudly. “Look, Kofi, someone drinking an outside drink isn’t a reason to tell RIGHT there’s an apocalypse level emergency.”
“There is a sign which states no outside drinks.” The skeleton doesn’t have any vocal chords. They sound sort of indeterminately Irish.
Cot3 tunes out the conversation and goes to sit on the couch next to the supervillain who grins at them. “Kelvin,” ey say, offering the hand that isn’t holding the milkshake.
She takes it and shakes it. “Cote Loveless III. Or - Cot3. With a three not an e. I thought Kelvin was -“ and they gesture in the direction she thinks the ballpark is in.
“I’m not entirely sure how to articulate the difference, but it’s a pleasure to meet you anyway, Cot3. And there’s two Kelvins. Kelvin Andante. Call me Danny.”
“No one calls you Danny,” says Adelaide loudly from the counter before turning back to the skeleton.
“That is true,” ey say. “I’m a Danny in theory but never in practice. In practice I’m just Kelvin or hey you or no put that down don’t aaaaargh.”
Cot3 blinks. “And you’re a supervillain.”
“Just tragically misunderstood!”
“And you’re drinking an outside milkshake?”
Kelvin Andante - Danny? - leans in. “Just between you and me, I’m trying to convince old misery guts over there to go to Mindy’s - you know Mindy? - Mindy’s birthday party. They’ll crack soon. They’re already calling Judochop in for help.”
“That’s not very supervillain-y,” says Cot3, feeling slightly disappointed by this fire-haired oddball whose fake mustache seems to be about to fall off.
Andante sweeps eir arms out, nearly spilling the milkshake before ey remember eir holding it. “Like I said. Misunderstood!”
5.
She’s not in the mood to have to deal with an out of control robot, especially not one with Kelvin Andante firmly clutched in one arm.
Ey sort of wave at her while she dodges beneath a heavy metallic fist.
“It was Gia’s idea!” ey shout.
She barely gets out of the way of a stomp powerful enough to shake the ground. “Is it sentient?” she yells back.
She flips underneath it and spins around behind it, striking out with the blattlizer only for it to catch it in its free claw and hold her fixed there.
“Don’t think so!” calls out Kelvin. “There’s an off switch on the sole of its right foot!”
It kicks her in the gut, her armor absorbing most of it, but hard enough to make her stumble back and let go of her weapon. It tosses the bat to the side and advances on her, still holding tightly to a slightly squeezed looking Kelvin.
She backs off. With her eyes carefully on the robot, she keys a quick sequence into the control panel on her left arm. Two rockets fly out from the back of her suit, avoiding the side with Kelvin, and exploding and sending it off balance. She dives for the blattlizer and rolls around only for the right foot to descend towards her face.
Her instincts kick in and she gets the bat between her and the crushing metal. It strains against the force, her arms tensing and trying to hold it up. But she can see the button - there’s no way she’ll be able to let go of the blattlizer long enough to press it, not without getting crushed. But it’s - she smacks her helmet release against the side of her arm and the visor slides back and she drives her nose into the button, gasping in pain as it crunches against it.
But the button presses in.
The force against the blattlizer lets up as the machine locks into place and she slides out from under it, blood trickling from her probably broken nose. Then she remembers Kelvin and freezes before glancing in eir direction.
Ey are very studiously staring up at the artificial sun and not at her. “Sorry! Just, uh, isn’t modern technology wonderful!”
She rolls her eyes, fonder than usual, and slots her visor back in place before going to pry away the robotic fingers still clutching em tightly.
1.
“I could accidentally liberate one of Jo’s sentient plant monsters or something?” ey say, sitting down next to her. “Might make you feel better?”
She turns red rimmed eyes to briefly glare at em before returning her focus to her shaking hands.
“Yeah, thought not.” Ey fall silent, scuffing eir boot against the ground.
They sit there in silence for a few minutes before Andante glances nervously over at her.
“I know we’re not super close and usually when we talk it’s because I’ve managed to fu - to screw something up, but. You know. We’re teammates, technically, and I’ve been told I’m the best hugger in the DownTown area.”
“No you’re not,” she says without much of any intonation.
“I’ve been told I’m a hugger in the DownTown area,” ey concede. “Do you want some icecream?”
She does actually look up at that, meeting eir big guileless brown eyes with her own salt-stained stare. “Why would I want icecream?”
“Everyone wants icecream,” ey say and she scoffs and looks away only to have eir hand, holding a cube of what looks like Cookie Dough thrust back into her eyeline.
She takes it, more out of instinct than conscious thought, then stares at the freezing cube as it immediately begins melting upon contact with her skin.
“Yeah I don’t have a spoon. Sorry.”
“Why do you have a cube of ice cream?” she asks.
Ey shrug. “Cubes are easier? Also cold stuff. Cold cubes. I’m great at ice cubes. You remember the ice cube, right?”
“This came from your hair?”
“Yup! It’s pretty good, though. Just a rearrangement of energy.”
Adelaide awkwardly takes a bite of it. It is good. She’s holding a giant cube of ice cream in her bare hands.
She doesn’t know if it’s the sugar or the sheer absurdity of the entire situation but she feels the pressure behind her eyes begin to spill over and just turns and crumples into Kelvin, sobbing into the hug and the stupid ridiculous cube of ice cream.