bootyhunter | CALL ME OUT

["Why Are You Yelling" should be the title of his memoir.

...Oh.

She's swimming. Or well, floating.

Rex doesn't put words to it, but he feels victorious, in a way. If she's distracting herself in the presence of someone else, even if that someone may be the world's worst superhero, she isn't suffering. Not actively. Therefore, by proxy, he is doing something good, and by even further of a stretch...

That means that in a way, he is doing his job.]

Yeah.

[Rex has never possessed the gift of gab.]

I know.

I wanted to do something before all of that, but, I-

[I'm tired.

He is always tired.

So there's no excuse.]

Do you ever get any sleep?

Some. [It’s honest, at least.

That wasn’t new, either. The last year has been full of restless nights, no matter how hard she tried for her beauty sleep. She’d dreamed of George, or Anna—- of fireworks. Of Henry’s face, his hand pressing into her back. Then she’d dreamed of Katie, begging her to do something. What were a few more nightmares to add to the bunch?

She’s actually grateful for her roommate assignments. He doesn’t say anything when she wakes up shouting the names of dead girls.

But she doesn’t say any of that to Rex. She leaves it as it is.]

What about you?

I'm not too comfortable knockin' out really, no.

[When he does manage to fall asleep, it's Gwen's worst nightmare. That's two snoring louts in her room, although one of them is actually likable, and that one isn't Rex.]

Sometimes I'll exercise a lot? And try really hard to get all hot and sweaty, but, aah...

Even in this limp-dick-boy, fleshy meat-prison, it's... Hard.

[He means a body without superpowers.]

I'm just used to more... Shit, I guess. Just as dangerous! Probably worse. Actually? Very much so.

But there's a lot less sitting and waiting.

Shocker, superheroes don’t sleep well. [She says it dryly, but… Well. She’s calling him what he claims to be.]

I get it, though. Sometimes it helps; to just move until you can’t think anymore.

[Parker’s very specifically ignoring his limp dick comment. She swims backwards a little, careful to keep more than enough distance between them, and turns her gaze to the ceiling.]

There’s a library, now, at least. I was going to lose my mind if I had to re-read Othello for the fourteenth time. Might as well make use of all of the time sitting and waiting.

There's a reason for that, but... I'll spare you the details.

They're, um, gross.

[Should he tell her? That the iconic halls he walks on the daily were rife with the blood of the heroes that came before him. Their shoes are too damn big to fill, but what he will take is the higher pay cut, absolutely.]

Yeah, I get what you mean.

[He has been running for so long.

Running, leaping, doing back flips... She is a cheerleader and he is a superhero, but their gymnastics-based training makes them similar in that regard.]

You like that one?

Isn't that the one that's highkey racist? Oh! With the one woman-lady.

[Woman-lady.]

Doo-doo-momma-girl.

[DESDEMONA????]

Or was it Des-de-mommy?

[CLOSER???? BUT NO DICE]

[She’s morbidly curious, and wonders what kind of gross, but doesn’t ask. Parker has the feeling she doesn’t actually want to know, so she shrugs it off.

She also has the feeling that he really does know—- what it’s like to push yourself so far, trying to outrun the expectations placed upon you- both by yourself and others. So she doesn’t argue, and just focuses on the Shakespeare.]

Desdemona.

[She corrects him, emphasizing the name. Parker stans a dead Queen.]

It’s a little more complicated than that—- [She stops herself from plunging into an analysis on it, just barely.] —- that’s the one. It’s not my favorite, it’s just what the clown dropped on me last week.

I do like Shakespeare. That stuffs old as hell, but it’s still relevant.

But...

[Here, Rex waggles his eyebrows comically, hoping the joke will give her respite from her thoughts. Parker has better taste than this, certainly, but they've all collectively fallen upon hard times.]

Des-de-mommy... Die?

[like "does the mommy"

idk why i'm explaining this it's just us]

I didn't think you'd be that into theater. Well, if Racism-Shmacism isn't your favorite of the bunch, which one is? Also, you'll have to explain it to me.

I don't read shit.

Yes. Desdemona dies. [Shes playing this completely straight. Like he’s actually asking her.]

What, is it that shocking that I’m actually smart? [She doesn’t give him time to answer.] It was something George and I appreciated together. He always covered that kind of stuff for the school newspaper.

The Tempest. Romance, comedy, magic, adventure, and a play within a play. [Parker loves a good romance. Especially one where no one dies.]

And a happy ending.

So you're a romantic.

[Unsurprising. She strikes him as the tightly-wound, harsh type who is a sucker for a good love story. Her boyfriend died in a tragic accident, so she is searching for something hopeful to cling onto, even if it isn't real.

He is similar, in a way. Or was.

Most of those lovey-tales just hurt him now.]

Aaaah, no? But theater kids tend to be a lot geekier lookin' than you, at least most of the time! Although...

They are just as attention-seeking.

Is it attention-seeking if I don’t have to seek it? People just love me. I can’t help it. [It’s another half truth. People do flock to Parker— she radiates an energy that pulls others into orbit around her. Some of it’s from trying way too hard. Some of it’s natural. And not even Parker knows the difference, anymore.]

Enough about my embarrassing nerd parts. What about you? What do you like? [since he doesn’t read there’s gotta be something…]

[He'd protest if he actually disliked her, but she's a pretty white girl, and god do people love those, himself included.

Something about his face changes when she asks him that question. He has to take a moment to back himself up against the wall and lean onto it with both arms. How long has it been since someone asked Rex about his personal interests and not the limits of his abilities? Kate had been quick to mess around when he lied about himself and Eve breaking up, but it hadn't been anything deeper than a round of spiteful sexy-times.]

Uh, booze, babes, and bombs? The three B's?

[A surface level answer.]

Sorry. I mean... Fuck. Not like that, not the violent bits!

[Not all the violent bits.]

Moreso just the, ah, fireworks. The smell? Sans burning flesh!

[Rex sheepishly rubs at the back of his neck. This is a tough topic for her, so he switches gears.]

Also, gymnastics.

[Fireworks. The smell of burning flesh. Could she even differentiate the two? Parker feels her chest seize with panic, and she moves subconsciously, turning her back away from him, even if it means she’s looking in his direction now—- and then he changes the topic. She exhales heavily.

She’d loved fireworks too, once. The colors, the sparkle. And even the smell.

But not anymore.]

Okay, I didn’t see that last part coming.

[He watches her chest rise and fall, concerned. Rex isn't all that good at stopping himself from talking when he really shouldn't, but was all that information worth the terror within her heart? It's beating so loudly he can hear it from where he is.]

Gymnastics? Really?

[She should recognize his form, but then again, he and Libra are some of the paltry few who had visited the gym recently. For the two combatants, gore in its grisliest of forms is just as mundane as ketchup on a hotdog, however insensitive it may seem to some.]

I figured you of all people would pick up on it, but, ah! Well.

Yeah. I'm a real 'nastics whiz. The superpowers help, obviously? But even without 'em, I've always been... Springy? And flexible. God, there's another word for it, it sounds like nipple...

Oh! Nimble! Right.

Edited 2022-02-12 08:35 (UTC)

Now that you say it, it makes sense. [She’s calming down, now, and the nimble-nipple comment actually gets half a laugh out of her. Her breathing’s more regular, her shoulders more relaxed.]

It’s just that most guys I know would never admit that would be something they’re into. Toxic masculinity, at its best. [who taught her these words]

God, it is so crazy that people think that! It's the basis of all my fighting styles, and I'm a literal pro at so many martial arts! Krav maga, jujitsu, muay thai, taekwondo...

[What he neglects to mention is that if he didn't pass all the tests, he would have been unlikely to survive the surgery. Either that or he'd have been gunned down first.

The second thing is probably what would have happened.]

And those are just the top four!

Edited 2022-02-12 09:00 (UTC)

Brag much?

[But she’s smiling- more natural than she usually does, less like she’s about to kill a man with her smile alone - and her voice is missing most of the bite that it’s held when she talked to him in the past.

Then she Parker’s up the entire conversation by being way too straight forward.]

So— why do you do it? All the fighting, the masked stuff. Is it about being needed? Or… about being feared?

[Rex's expression grows somber rather quickly, the premature lines around his nose and mouth now prominent, a Rex Splode signature. If the boy isn't smiling with mirth, he's frowning or touting another exaggerated angry face, go figure.

Why is he a superhero? The truth is that he actually wanted to do some good after all the trouble he'd caused, because it's what he had always wanted to do. But with a list of crimes in several countries, all murders, on top of the additional charges of identity theft, cybersecurity breaches, arson, and then some...

He'd be jailed for life or executed. And on top of all that, even if he were to be set free into the world with covered tracks, he hadn't received an education past the seventh grade, which he never finished.

So he'd be fucked, basically.]

It's because I can't do anything else.

[Parker basically embodies the word privilege. While there are a whole lot of circumstances she feels trapped by, they’re almost all self imposed. So she hadn’t thought for even a second about what it might be like to actually not have a choice. The weight of that hits her now, and she tries to ignore it.]

What about when you started? Why—-

[She jerks upright from her leisurely float, and whips around to look at him again.]

Holy Shit, Rex, did someone make you do this?

You mean the hero thing?

[The answer is complicated. Rex did willingly try to commit himself to a brighter path, a better future. But his original contract, meaning the years he's technically been "employed," goes so much farther back than that of his colleagues the same age. Eve is the only one who has been "working" for just as long, and even then, she was a plucky young super fighting crime on her own.]

No. I decided that. I wanted that!

Y'know, for me.

[The words are brazen, but his tone is not.]

Turns out I've got a whole damn bunch of marketable skills!

But it's not like I learned them in college.

[She eyes him dubiously, but lets it go. There’s a little bit of relief that she didn’t accidentally trip into some weird forced-hero ring. And… the fact is, his claim that he does it for him is familiar.]

I pageant for me, too. Everyone assumes that someone’s forcing me to do it. [Why does she do it, anyway? It goes back to her original question to Rex, about why he did hero work. There’s something about being so perfect that it both fools, and terrifies everyone. About being so perfect that you feel untouchable, at least, for a little bit of time.]

You’d like college life. It checks your three Bs. Maybe less with the bombs. Bonfires, though, lots of those.

[He would, in theory. There's lots of parties and plenty of girls to plow through with no strings attached, but he'd never get in, now would he?

Rex makes himself at home at parties. Superhero parties, that is.

He remembers when Eve had taken him to some dinky little highschool dance. Sadie Hawkins, or whatever. All these annoying little brats, and while most of his heroic colleagues would perceive Rex to be exactly that, immature and out of his depth... There is so much that sets Rex apart from them. For one, he's more useful. He knows how to survive out in the streets on his own and has braved harsh Chicago winters with little to no electricity. He appears boorish and impulsive, which he is, but he had managed to slip under the nose of Cecil Steadman himself, all under the age of sixteen.]

No.

[And, of course, none of those kids knew what it was like to kill a man, and that leaves him furious. He may fight Samson, claiming that he's done his best, even though all those children died due to his own lack of foresight, but there are so many reasons behind his insufferable behavior. Rex does not want to be responsible for the deaths of any more innocents- He's already irrevocably snuffed out so many flames.]

No, I wouldn't.

Hmph. [There’s a little bit of frustration hinting at her voice there—- but it’s just because someone’s disagreeing with her. It’s not something people normally do with her, disagreeing, not since Anna died. Not to her face, at least.

She hadn’t realized she missed it.]

I guess you can get beer and boobs wherever.

Oh, now I definitely can.

[Yes, that's him tooting his own horn about how hot he is.]

'Cause I'm, uh, smexy.

[STOP!!!! unfortunately i would have to add in the detail that "smexy" is uttered breathily with the jason mantzoukas "sexy time" rasp]

'Cept here it seems. Everyone's a smelly old man or a goddamn rugrat. Minus you and the priest.

[butt what about-]

Slimon doesn't count. Incels are on the NO-FUCK list, obviously!

[Parker rolls her eyes so dramatically that it almost hurts. She probably should stand up
for Simon, but she’s not quite there yet—- so she just lets it slide.]

Is that why you’re in here, splashing around with no clothes on? Trying to make someone notice how smexy [She tries to mimic him. She fails.] you are?

Aaaah, yeah! Duh!

[Yes and no.

The supersuit, as cherished as it is, is a uniform as much as it is a symbol. When he wears it, he is supposed to be working hard, although Rex usually is hardly working. When he is in his own skin and just that, he finally feels like himself.]

Not enough of you people seem to appreciate how hot I am, and I am hot! It doesn't matter if ya wanna fuck me or not, the Handsome Bastard title is non-negotiable.

CALL ME OUT

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