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ariineii · 11 days ago

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Meant To Be (We Might Be All Right Now)

Martyn is a cashier that hates his job and avoids his powers. He's not looking for his soulmate and he's certainly not looking to return to the sidekick lifestyle. Things get complicated when he slaps the biggest, baddest supervillain in town and discovers that they're his soulmate.

Martyn hates them immediately. And Cleo hates him immediately too. But hey, he can survive this...

...right?

Or: Martyn is a guy. Cleo is a supervillain with anger issues. This is a meet ugly.

(Tumblr Version was supposed to go up last night but it didn't so. well here it is now lmao)

Chapter 1.

Martyn didn't like working at the supermarket.

Should have been quite obvious, really. Nobody liked working at the supermarket. Not unless you had a passion for Tesco meal deals and customers asking to see the manager. But still, it was a job, and it was a job that had nothing to do with heroes or villains. His sidekick days were over.

It was the late shift, and the store was small. Thus, he was the only employee in the store. Poor old Martyn, left alone to man the till, stare at his non-existent phone and wait for a customer to come and yell at him about a lack of milk. Or something along those lines. Last time, it had been Sharpies. He didn't know why people would come to Tesco to buy Sharpies, of all things, but the customer was always right.

"Excuse me.”

Oh great. Martyn almost groaned, but he suppressed it. Just an hour more of talking to customers and then he could go home. Martyn pushed himself out of his slump to stare at them. He could do this. He could do this. He was so good at talking to people and scanning things. He could absolutely do this.

The customers head tilted. Yeah. This was cool. This was fine. Talking to people was easy. "Do you know where the meal deals are?"

"The meal deals are at the back." Martyn stretched sluggishly, blinking his eyes open. God, he needed to do yoga or something. "Drinks and sandwiches are in the fridge, snacks are in the shelf next to them-"

The first thing he noticed was that his mystery customer was wearing white—white shirt, white suitpants, white waistcoat. The customer was wearing a red cape on top of that. The customer was covered in dried blood. It was all of those things that he recognised but didn't fully process what any of the weird outfit or weirder bloodstains were until he fully lifted his eyes and stared at them, face covered in a wolf-skull mask.

Martyn’s mouth opened, then closed. Then opened again. He gaped.

A supervillain. At his till.

And not a mid supervillain; this supervillain had killed thousands of people. The supervillain that could kill him in a heartbeat. The supervillain that was (allegedly) cursed to cause death wherever she went. Uh oh. This was not good.

“Thanks!” Biteback's tone lit right up. Without fuss, she swept her way around the shelves and disappeared to… find the meal deals, he supposed.

Any normal persons reaction this would be to start screaming hysterically. Martyn could only stare dumbly in her direction.

…working the late night shift could be pretty tiring. Maybe his dumb job of giving people meal deals and lottery tickets had finally driven him insane. Was he supposed to call the cops? Or wait for her to leave and then call the cops? Did he run and hide somewhere first? He’d been trained to deal with Karens and the Americans with guns, not supervillains.

He, momentarily, debated using his powers. Then in one of the isles that he could see from his position at the till, he spotted a person in traditional black and blue necromancy robes, adorned with an oversized deer skull. Martyn froze. This was real. As the necromancer glanced up at him—said necromancer was stuffing an unholy amount of salt into an IKEA bag—Martyn gulped and backed away. He recognised that outfit; Khione.

Okay, yeah. He was so not risking using his powers. With two supervillains in the room, he couldn't risk it yet. But... jeez. He remembered now what had blared on about them on the telly; they were a soulmate pair and were never seen without the other.

Martyn swallowed and forced himself to maintain an air of calm. Okay. He… just two supervillains- Just two soulmate supervillains robbing his store. Right. This was- fine.

His mind scrambled to remember something , anything else about them. God, now was not the time for brain freeze- wait. That was it . Khione had ice powers and… some kind of dark magic. Biteback could summon horrifying shadow wolves. They were part of a trio…

Oh. Right. They had a third partner in crime. Blight. Yep, he'd definitely seen Blight on the news recently. They'd robbed something. Their powers were...

Martyn’s mind pulled up a blank. Invisibility? Nope. They did something else, something more freaky…

Khione started lugging the bag of goods towards the till. Each squeak the canvas made on the floor made Martyn want to shudder, but he found himself frozen in place. Had Khione frozen him? He did a quick double check. No, he was just shivering because he was a coward.

You’d think that supervillains would at least be wary advertising their purchases in front of a random coward-cashier that could call the cops on them (he wouldn’t), but apparently not. Khione regarded him with the same importance as a dead frog, then yanked the bag onto the counter and proceeded to stare at him. God, that was freaky. What did he want-?

…right! Martyn was a cashier. He was supposed to scan things for customers. It was his job. He was good at his job. Very good. It was why he hadn't been given a pay raise in the past year of working here, because he was just so good that upper management had it out for him.

Wait.

Khione was… paying ?

Flawless black gloves tapped against the counter. He couldn’t see the look on Khione’s face, because, well, freaky deer mask, but he'd worked in this shithole long enough to know impatience when he saw it. Right. Scanning.

First was the salt. Two pounds, thirty pence per bottle. Seventeen bottles of it. That was thirty-nine pounds and ten pence (inflation was going to kill them all, but he supposed that if you brought seventeen bottles of salt for fun then you kinda deserved to die). Eight packs of disposable garbage bags, the kind that were conveniently large enough to just about store a body. Yikes! Three pounds each. Eight times three was twenty-four pounds. As for the meat… and there was a lot of meat-

"What on earth are you holding?"

Martyn jumped. Khione had moved his head to look at a now present Biteback, the antlers of his deer skull almost whacking the plexiglass they'd put up around the counters during the pandemic and never taken down. He was suddenly very grateful for pexiglass. He didn’t want grubby-grotty-Tesco-shopper-germs, and he definitely didn’t want supervillain germs, and-

"A meal deal," Biteback responded with far too much cheer for 9 PM on a Wednesday night. True to her word, she was carrying a watercress-and-egg sandwich, a cherry flavoured Pepsi Max and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. “And dog food.”

“I am not buying you dog food." He fumbled for something buried in his masses of robes. He produced a plain, black wallet stuffed to the brim with cash. Since when did supervillains pay for stuff? Didn't they just steal it? “I am not buying you a meal deal. ”

Biteback made a noise of indignation. "But- you brought Blight a meal deal on Friday."

"Because neither of us had lunch on Friday, Bitey.” Bitey? Martyn clenched the edge of the counter and strained every muscle in his body to not erupt into hysterical laughter. “Why do you even want a meal deal? We already ate."

"I can't believe that you won't buy your soulmate a meal deal." She huffed. She slapped the items on the counter. The sandwich toppled awkwardly into the salt and knocked it over. "And you won't even buy any dog food. What’s this random cashier going to think of this?”

Martyn froze as they both looked at him. He only just managed to put out words. “I… don’t judge.” He put out weakly.

Biteback huffed again and redirected her attention to Khione. “What is our daughter going to think of that?"

"We don’t have a daughter. You have a dog.” Khione distractedly shoved a wad of cash at Martyn. He took it, eyeing it with the most amount of caution he'd given anything, ever. Was it laced with poison? Or cursed to set on fire? His attention, thankfully, remained on his soulmate.

"She's a special dog."

"Your dog literally hates me."

“She only hates you when you're mean to me and don't buy me meal deals.” Biteback elbowed him, hard enough that he could see the wince. "Are you going to pay for the dog food or not?”

"...fine."

He blinked, and then Khione was shoving her meal deal and dog food in Martyn's face. Martyn gripped at it stiffly, pressing the scanner over the barcode.

What if he took too long scanning? What if he dropped the change? What if they asked for a disposable plastic bag and killed him when he said that they cost ten pence?

“You don’t have a soulmate, do you?” Khione sniffed at him. Martyn gulped and shook his head. “ Good. Keep it that way.”

He elected to ignore that for fear of being killed at the spot, and began to fumble for the change. He almost dropped it twice and swallowed as he handed it over. “Is that… everything?"

Before Khione could take the money, Biteback picked it right out of his hands and shoved it into an unseen pocket. Khione’s head slowly turned towards her. That did not seem like a healthy soulmate relationship at all, but you know what? Not his soulmate, not his problem. Unless they had an argument and destroyed the Tesco. Then it was definitely his problem, because the store didn't have insurance from supervillain fights. But other than that, no. He wasn’t paid enough to care.

"If you call the police, we will blow up this shop with you inside," Khione said calmly. The air froze, sharpened as he tilted his head. It was like a predator watching its prey. "Are we clear?”

"...yes,” Martyn squeaked. A small crawl of frost started to inch across the counter. He panicked, yelped out louder. “Yes! I won't call the police! I don't want them either-”

"Good." The frost dissipated, leaving behind a trail of droplets. Khione swiped at it, smearing the water across the counter. “Bye bye, pretty boy.”

Biteback snatched her soulmate by the arm and started dragging him off. He cursed at her and she cursed at him right back, snatching the bag from him as he almost dropped it. He heard a voice - in all honesty, he couldn’t tell whose it was - raise in an ungodly shriek as they left, cut off with the bang of the door closing.

Martyn stared.

Martyn stared for several minutes.

What did he do now? Call the police? Call his manager? Call the CEO of Generica City Tesco? Sweat began to bead on the back of his neck? What should he do?

Marryn did as all good minimum wage workers who'd just worked a dubiously legal 10 hour shift, and elected to ignore it until his boss brought it up.

The next day was painful.

He spent, to start with, an extra ten seconds more struggling with his rusty lock than he normally did and almost missed the bus. The bus then turned out to be full and he'd had to stand. And then came work itself—his manager had not been impressed to find out they had been robbed by two supervillains, and somehow managed to blame him . With every chime of the door, he imagined Biteback or Khione slipping in and grinning at him- which didn't really make sense, because neither of their masks showed their mouths, but- ugh . At least the manager didn't call the police, which was definitely breaking Tesco TM protocol and was probably to do with semi-illegal contents in the garages on this street, but the last thing he needed was a police investigation that would involve heroes.

Everything was fine, he assured himself with wide eyes and clammy skin. A coworker asked if he was okay—he waved her off even if he did jump at every minor creak of the door. It worked, mostly because everyone people working there were only there to collect a paycheck and go. All he had to do was stand at a stupid till and scan items, and then it would all be fine.

His hands shook minutely as he worked.

Then, there was the great temptation; open up his Sight and see what he could find. Martyn could feel the twitching crawl of his near-permanently shut Sight, begging to be opened up and to glean for anything his human eyes couldn't. He hushed it down. He did not need someone sensing his Sight and he did not need anyone connecting the dots. One could never be too paranoid. Right? Wrong. He could be too paranoid. Because everything was fine. Nobody knew who he was, and nobody was connecting any dots. The dots he was worrying about were non-existent.

The rest of the day went just about fine. Fine! One hundred percent, completely fine. No no, Martyn wasn't nervous. Martyn was a big boy who did big boy adult things. It was- ugh, it was fine . Normal , even, if you could call this city normal. The city of Generica was, in one word, generic, but that didn’t mean it could sometimes be extremely dangerous and slash or weird.

He- as much as he would rather not after the events of yesterday- was the last one to leave. His manager promised that he would get paid extra for the last hour, which he didn't believe one single bit, but he couldn't afford to be choosey. Rent didn't pay itself. So there he was, 10 PM on a Thursday night, closing the shop all by himself and praying that the the googlies didn't get him. No Biteback, no Khione, no zombies or shadowwolves jumped out, which he took as a good sign.

Martyn looked around semi-fearfully at the shadows around him—not full-fearfully, but still wary. The car park was empty. It usually was at this time of night. The rest of the shops closed much, much earlier than this Tesco—to the right of the store, a small array of ratty charity shops and a grubby cafe. To the left, a long row of those dinky garages that you could hire and leave stuff in.

It was late enough that he’d missed his usual bus, but there was another bus in about…. twenty minutes? He was about to check his phone when he remembered that he didn’t have a phone. Yay him. He shook himself off- he didn't know what he was shaking off of him, but he felt the need to do it out of instinct- and tried to ignore the squelch of his work shoes (shitty quality trainers) against the muddy road. God forbid bus stops ever be somewhere clean in this city. But that was Generica City for you. It was anything, if not generic.

Posters peeled off the back of the bus stop; a rather official looking poster that read “The Wither Rose Trio Wants You To Report Villain Sightings; call 69-0420 Today!”, or the years old, faded posters that yelled advertisements such a “Get Tickets For LDShadowLady: That's Just Shadow! (Special Guest Star: Tommy Innit)”. Bored, he skimmed the others for only a moment (what the hell was Twinkly Trash Cleaning?) before giving up. It was dark, he was cold, and he would like to do nothing more than curl up and sleep. He stuffed himself on the bus bench, jammed his hands into his pockets, and glared at the icy road.

A minute ticked by.

Then another.

Five. He shoved his hand out of his coat to splay his fingers out and glare at them. Yep, it had definitely been five minutes. He stuffed his fingers back into the pocket.

He wished that he’d brought his rucksack. It was huge and baggy and had far too much room and he definitely did not have enough stuff to justify lugging it around every day, but he could fit one of those cheap books you could get from the local charity shop in it. The selections there were poor but four for one pound was a flipping bargain, he had to admit.

He, distantly, thought about Ren's bookshelf. He'd loved collecting books; not the cheap, casual paperbacks either. Cloth and leather-bound books that looked impossibly old, and probably were. He never read any, but that didn't mean-

A flickering movement snapped him out of his thoughts.

Martyn didn't turn his head, immediately paranoid. Should he use his powers? He hesitated, then felt for the thrum of adrenaline in his veins. Cautiously, cautiously, he opened up his Sight.

A person. Standing near the Tesco, but not near enough to confirm a robbery or anything like that. He allowed himself to open his Sight up a little bit more, enough to confirm that the figure was, in fact, standing in front of the garages and enough to confirm that there were security cameras. A jolt raced through him—he hadn't considered the existence of security cameras last night. There were fines for not reporting villain activity, and he couldn't pay them. Oh, what was he doing -

The figure slipped inside the garage. Martyn held his breath. After a few moments, they emerged. He froze—had they seen him? He didn't dare push his Sight a fraction more.

Then he saw it. A hand pressed against the crumbling bricks. Darkness shot through the mortar- no. Not darkness. Rot . Martyn stared in a mixture of disgust and horror as sickly, streams of rot chasmed through the building. He knew who this villain was now, had caught a sickening glimpse of a skull mask and the unmistakably deathly black costume. Blight. What were they doing here?

He, finally, remembered what their powers were. He felt a little stupid considering that it was literally in their name— Blight —but he blamed it on the stress of the night before. Rot. Decay. Destruction. Why on Earth had he been so scared of the rumours of Bitebacks death curse? This was so, so much worse than shadow wolves.

He Saw the cracks before he heard them, but nothing could prepare him for the deafening groan of brick and steel creaking. Blight paused, then withdrew something from their pocket.

Right. Martyn had had enough of this. He was leaving. He was leaving now .

And as he turned around, something exploded.

His head snapped around at breakneck speed, unable to look away from the catastrophe in front of him. Fire spilt out of the garage and roared, combing straight through the rottened walls and flaring outwards. Martyn watched in horror as the flame burst into the Tesco- his Tesco-

But Blight didn’t stop. Instead, they shoved a hand out in front of them and curled their fingers inwards. The garage in front of them collapsed on the spot. And then the garage next too it. The flames were hot enough that he could feel them from the bus stop, and he startled backwards. He could do nothing but watch, in agonising horror, as the only job and only real security he’d had for the past year went up in flames.

At this point, he was too angry to give a shit about what Blight could do to him, only about what they’d just done to him.

“That was where I worked,” Martyn screeched at the top of his lungs. It was a shockingly loud, shrill noise that should have pierced glass but broke no reaction from the supervillain. “You asshole-!”

No Tesco meant no job. No job meant no money. No money meant no rent. And jobs that paid without putting him in the system were near impossible to get, which meant that he'd have to relocate again.

The lack of reaction should have inspired him to run before they could kill him. Instead, it only seized him into unsteady but violently furious stomps towards them. What the fuck was wrong with them? What had he done to deserve his workplace being blown up? What had anyone on this street done to deserve having their property blown up? Martyn liked to keep his Sight under wraps, but he saw red.

“What are you waiting for?” Martyn demanded. Blight still wasn't facing him. He could make out their golden chest piece, structured to look like ribs. He wanted to take it, piece by piece, and break it. “Why don't you look at me, you absoloute -”

They turned, finally and before he could even think “this is a really bad idea”, he punched them in the face.

In theory, it shouldn’t have done anything. But Martyn was pissed enough to put his full strength into it. Blights head snapped to the side with the force, and if he listened closely he swore he could hear the unsteady creak of bone underneath.

“I…” they were wearing a skull mask. He'd literally just slapped a skull. But more important than that, he had slapped Blight. Of all the supervillains in the city, and of all the villains and heroes he hated enough to actually slap, he had chosen to slap the one that could kill him in an instant.

Their voice was a low, dangerous growl. “Go ahead,” they dared, and in that moment Martyn knew that they were every single bit angry as he had suspected they were.

Martyn swallowed and steeled his nerves. Adrenaline mixed with the oddest combination of rage and terror to power his eyes upwards at them. Their skull mask- it was fairly simple, compared to the skull masks he’d seen on Khione and Biteback, but he blanched upon realising that it had been from a real skull, hacked away at to make room for it to fit on their face, He braced himself and forced himself to meet their eyes. Bloodshot and violently green, baring nothing but disgust and hate-

-and-

-pain?

Martyn's knees buckled as the most searing pain he'd ever felt consumed him. He choked. His entire body felt like it was on fire. Was this what Blight's powers felt like? Being flayed alive? His stubborn anger had disappated instantly, and his mouth hung open in the attempt to gargle out a plea. He’d heard they were undead—did the undead know mercy?

He gasped and stared straight ahead at Blight. Instead of towering over him, they had similarly hundhced over. He could hear their breathing; mangled, wheezing breath tore out of them like blood tore out of skin. Their hands gritted against the now ruined pavement, which only made his pain grow worse. His hand could have been on fire and he wouldn't have known any difference.

It cleared like a fleeting thunderstorm. Martyn blinked the spots out of his eyes and juttered upwards shakily. Blight was still staring at him.

“You can't be,” They gagged, stumbling away from him. Martyn almost gasped as they brushed against the flames, saw it go out. How had they gone out? It was then that he realised that their rot had cut outwards, smothering the flames in a thick blanket of death. Blight’s foot hit a chunk of rubble and exploded with pain. Pain that he felt , deeply, violently, as if it were happening to him-

No.

No, no, no.

This couldn't be happening. Martyn couldn't get involved with villains. He couldn’t. He’d promised himself, after Ren, that he would leave this world and never go back.

His mouth dried in horror. “You're my soulmate?”

Blight didn’t answer. The unnatural, shared pain that echoed in his bones was all the answer he needed.

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