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1
Chad really should’ve protected his identity better. It was far too easy for Rex to figure him out. What kind of idiot put his actual name in his superhero title? Not only that, but Chad didn’t even hide his face. He just wore glasses in public. It was almost as if the Chadster had wanted to be found out. After figuring out who he was, all Rex had to do was figure out Chad Westerly’s schedule.
Rex had always been a fan of poison, so it seemed to him the obvious place to start would be with a bit of hemlock in Chad’s coffee. He followed Chad to his morning Warbucks run and slipped the barista a ‘tip’ to let him take over.
The plan nearly went off without a hitch. Chad took his grande strawberries and creme frappuccino, sub classic for white mocha, 3 pumps raspberry, no whip on top but a little on the bottom, double blended, second time blended with a splash of black tea, and was getting ready to leave. Rex prepared to follow him to his car, but Chad turned around sooner than expected and spilled his over-priced coffee all over Rex’s fancy new suit.
“Oh my god, I’m so sorry, I didn’t see you there!” He frantically apologized, grabbing napkins and wiping at Rex’s shirt. Rex took a step back and ran off before Chad could say more, and Chad stared after as he went.
2
A few days later, Rex stood hidden in the corner of the alley next to Chad’s office building. Chad had his lunch break in a few minutes, and he usually spent it patrolling the city and stopping crime. But today, the second Chad stepped out those doors, the bioreactors on Rex’s cannon would shoot him with fire that could burn straight through shakanium.
And so he sat there. Ten minutes passed, and he was right on time for Chad’s break. Twenty. Maybe Chad just got caught up with some extra paperwork. Thirty. Where was he? And forty. Rex decided that Chad wasn’t coming out today for some reason. He walked past the detector to peer into the building.
At that moment, guess who finally decided to appear? The bioreactor went off and a startled Chad yanked Rex out of the way. Rex huffed, wiping dust off his shirt and cursing, staring up at his shameless enemy.
“Are you ok? What was that? Is there something happening out there?” Chad started rapid-firing questions at Rex, who was staring in horror at the clock on the wall. Rex had forgotten to update his watch for daylight savings time! He stormed off, leaving a confused Chad in his wake.
3
Rex was determined this time. He’d succeed. The first two times had been flukes! Today’s plan was infallible. It didn’t even require the secret identity nonsense! He’d been preparing these bots for ages and now all that was left was to pick a fight with the Chadster.
So, he began starting some low-level chaos in town, raiding some shops and throwing a few cars. It didn’t take long for his nemesis to show up. They faced off floating hundreds of feet in the air, Rex using a jetpack and Chad using powers.
“You will terrorize this city no longer, villain!” Chad spat. Rex slowly smirked, though his face was obscured by his signature black helmet.
“Aw, but then when would we get to see each other?” he teased back. Chad was visibly flustered and Rex took the opportunity to send out his legion of robots. Knowing Chad hadn’t seen them yet, he made one last quip: “Now, doll, you just stand there and look pretty for a minute so we can finally end this.”
Chad’s face turned even pinker somehow and lasers shot from his eyes, destroying the robot army in one fatal swoop. Rex screamed and Chad sneezed, seemingly not even realizing what he’d just done.
4
Rex was just gonna explode his building. He was so tired. It’d been months since he’d figured out Chad’s identity, and he was sick of it all. There were now tons of high-grade explosives scattered through the foundations of the building just waiting for his command.
But, annoyingly, he’d sent his minions to set this up. And of course, they’d failed. He had clicked the remoted multiple times and the bomb still hadn’t gone off. Cursing them, he walked into the building to fix it.
Of course, just as he was walking down to the basement to fix things, guess what went off? Yep. The bombs. And guess who caught Rex as he fell, accepting that he’d never succeed in getting rid of Chad? That’s right! The target himself.
He even caught Rex bridal style, carrying him out to safety and gently putting him down. Rex shook his fist and cursed him as he ran away.
5
Rex DESERVED a break from making smart plans. All of them had failed anyway. When one of his minions jokingly suggested he just add to a combine harvester and chase after Chad, he’d agreed.
And that’s how he found himself here, on the streets of Capitol City, laughing maniacally as his shakanium plated, jet-powered combine harvester chased down civilians. He wasn’t in his usual costume, just a t-shirt in pants, and he kept an eye out for Chad, waiting to be able to take him down.
Really though, he was just having a good time. Or he was, until Chad arrived on the scene and stopped the combine harvester by simply laying a hand on it.
“Civilian! Your combine harvester seems to have malfunctioned! Not to worry, I can take you back to your farm if you point me in the right direction!”
Rex banged his head against the steering wheel and gave garbled directions that somehow turned out to lead to an actual farm.
1
“Hey, aren’t you that guy who I keep running into?” Rex heard someone ask behind him. He slowly turned around, and sure enough, there was Chad. They were at a park, Rex preparing to dump his villain stuff into the river and Chad going for an evening job in his civilian outfit.
“You are, aren’t you?” Chad continued, smiling and sticking out a hand, “I’m Chad. There’s not going to be another imminent crisis, is there?” He teased, and Rex frowned.
“Of course not, why would you say that?” Rex said, despite knowing what things looked like. He was too tired to come up with a good cover story. There was a moment of awkward silence where Chad still stood there grinning with his hand out and Rex contemplated running away again before he bit the bullet and shook Chad’s hand, “I’m Rex. Rex Roofer.”
“I’m glad we’re finally meeting without something awful happening! I’ve been thinking about you.” Rex gave him a confused glance before asking,
“What does that mean?”
“I mean, you seem nice and I feel bad about everything that’s happened, so… You wanna grab coffee sometime? I promise not to spill it on you!” Chad got out nervously. Rex was shocked. Him, nice? A few minutes went by in stunned silence and Chad seemed ready to dig a hole and hide forever before Rex finally spoke.
“Uh... You know what I can’t think of a reason to say no.” Chad beamed, and they planned a date and time. Rex told himself that it was to find a way to finally take Chad down, but he was fooling no one.
Three years later, they were still together. Rex had opened up about his identity, Chad had fixed things with his siblings, both were happier than ever. And so what if they were still enemies in battle? No one needed to know.