Title: We Can Be Heroes
Pairing: Kurtofsky
Rating: T, but to go up later.
Notes: This one's been a long time coming. I'm trying to get back into writing, and where better to start than with my favourite genre?
Summary: McKinleyopolis has always had two sides. Porcelain's a Good Guy and The Fury is his arch nemesis. It's that simple… right?
Chapter I - Porcelain
Ever since Porcelain was a child, he knew there was something special about him…wait, no. Too cliché.
Porcelain never did fit in with his peers – No, too newspaper.
Porcelain was a Good Guy.
Yes. That was right. Porcelain was a Good Guy. It was his job to be a Good Guy and he loved every minute of it, down to rescuing the screaming civilians and wrestling with the Bad Guys. He loved to save people, to do Good, to jump in and be the hero.
But that was his day job. At night, Kurt Hummel loved to stick on a film, or go to fancy restaurants with good-looking men and have passionate, yet meaningless one-night stands. It was one of the reasons he took the day shift. A lot of the guys at the Agency worked nights and lived ordinary lives during the day, with real jobs and real relationships and friends. Not Kurt. Kurt had never shied away from the limelight, after all. So what if it meant he could never stick around long in a relationship, just in case the guy finally connected his face with one of the masked ones that always seemed to be in the paper?
It had happened. Quite a few times, actually, but it was okay. Kurt just sucked it up, left, and the next day he was a new face, a new smile, new hair and eye color. Or maybe this week he'd be a busty woman, if he felt particularly horny or he'd exhausted the gay bars. Not like there was a man on earth that would be able to tell the difference. Kurt's gender became more fluid the more in need he was of a good fuck.
The name Porcelain had been a joke, at first. He'd had the unfortunate incident of fighting Sue Sylvester, a villain so evil she didn't even bother with an alias, though occasionally she made people call her General Zod. She'd started calling him Porcelain because he looked so dainty, like he'd break at the slightest touch. Of course, she'd then thrown him off a building, and everyone had marveled as he stood up, scowling, but without a scratch. Being invulnerable had its perks, after all. Since then, Frankenteen, a giant of a guy who was the result of some weird DNA combining experiment, had latched onto the nickname, and it had stuck. Kurt didn't mind too much; he was in the midst of trying to find a name anyway and nothing seemed to describe his primary powers. He'd thought about Morph and some other variations, but his name choice was as fickle as his continually changing body.
His actual powers also included mimicry and power absorption, and they were just as important as the shapeshifting. He'd obtained the invulnerability from his first boyfriend, a hero called Nightbird from Daltonville who had gone on to join an elite hero force that was a sort of private version of the Good Guys. He'd been a nice guy, and a great hero, but even invulnerability was no good when one of Snix's psychic razors had accidently caught him between the eyeballs. He'd never been much good at mental defense, that boy.
Kurt checked the alarm clock beside him and gave a low moan. His shift started in an hour and he hadn't even moved. Not to mention he must have been having a particularly good dream before he was woken up, because he could feel its lingering effects between his legs. He didn't have time for this. Today was a big day, the Bad Guys had issued a warning that they were hitting one of the major banks, and Kurt was about 90% sure that The Fury was somehow involved. And when The Fury was involved, Porcelain was always right there to stand against him.
After all, that's what arch-nemeses were for, right?
He got up and padded into his bathroom, stepping into the shower. He was late, so it would have to be a quick one. He would have to resist the urge to deal with his little problem by hand. Sighing, he turned the water on cold, shivering and sending a glare downwards. He could just use his powers, but it sometimes left a very uncomfortable feeling if he did, and he wasn't in the mood to be female today.
After washing himself as fast as he could, he dried up and brushed his teeth, regarding his reflection in the mirror. He'd been using the same body for a little while, a youngish male who looked like the amalgamation of two of Kurt's favorite celebrities. The hair was shorter than he was used to, so needed less time and effort, and while he'd started off with the eyes as a sort of dull brown, he'd quickly got bored and turned them violet. He preened in front of the mirror for a few minutes, before walking back into his room to get dressed.
His supersuit hung on the outside of his closet, further proof that he had no one in his life to even hide it from. If he had a boyfriend, it would be folded and hidden under the bed, or surreptitiously stashed in a bottom drawer. He pulled it down carefully and, with a fair bit of effort, slipped it on. Full-bodied skintight suits were extremely practical for fighting because they didn't get caught anything, but they were a bitch to get on.
His suit was custom made. In fact, he had his own designer for his superwear. A new suit every week or so was a little much to expect the Agency to pay for. Kurt liked to change it up, and he utterly refused to wear the standardized uniforms the Agency provided them. You were allowed to customize it however you liked, but as far as Kurt was concerned, it was the same suit underneath and he wasn't going to be the same as anyone. Even so, General Schuester had been nice enough to offer to make him one with his own designer team time and time again, but Kurt wouldn't have it. It wasn't like he was lacking in funds; the Agency paid spectacularly well.
This week's suit was sleek and black, one of Kurt's personal favorite looks. It accentuated every good point on whatever body he was currently using, and in this one, he looked absolutely sublime, thank you very much.
A second alarm sounded, this time on his phone. If he didn't leave now, he was definitely going to be late. No time to do his hair, so with a little twitch of an eye, he styled it using his powers, whilst grabbing for his phone to stop the sound.
1 New Message, the screen read. Kurt clicked it and saw the text from Emma Pillsbury, General Schuester's assistant. Fury confirmed for bank job. Well, that was a good incentive to hurry up. Deciding to eat at work, he gathered his things, throwing them into a fabulous new man bag and finally leaving the flat.
It was going to be a good day, he could tell. When The Fury was involved, it was usually a good day.
And not just because Kurt always won.
The bank heist was coming along perfectly for a whole fifteen minutes.
They were already in the vault when the alarm sounded, a new record for them. Z was halfway through saying "Hey, I think we beat the ala-" when the shrill noise had started up.
Yep, The Fury was pretty sure he was part of the worst villain team in the entire League of Doom.
"New record." Z said with a grin. Dave glared at him, knowing his mask was on so Z couldn't see it.
"Let's just grab some money and split, okay? I want to at least pass one mission this year."
"Jeez, you make it sound like we're in school."
"If this was school, you'd be a six year senior." Snix cut in, throwing a packet of money at Z and hitting him square on the nose.
"He was a six year senior." Dave muttered, and then dodged as Z's fist went to punch him in the stomach. Probably saved the guy a bruise, too, which you'd think he'd learn after hitting Dave in the armor plenty of times before. Z never was known to be a bright spark. To add further proof, he made another swipe at Dave, who deftly grabbed his hand and held it back. Z let out a low growl, and Dave suddenly noticed the ice quickly spreading from his hand down Dave's armor. "Hey! Watch the suit!"
"Can you idiots please stop fighting and bag this money before we get arrested again?" Snix yelled, glaring daggers at them. Not literally, of course, though that wasn't a rare occurrence within the group. Luckily, The Fury had equipped his armor with resistance against psychic attacks after the first one had caught him on the side of his head. Snix had been caught between guilt that she could have killed him and anger that Dave had actually survived without going into a coma. She spent the rest of the day getting teased by Z, like they did whenever someone's powers went on the fritz.
Not that Dave had to worry about that.
Dave tossed a few more packs into the bag before tying it off and scoping their exit route with the x-ray function in his helmet. Clear, at the moment. The police were lagging, as per usual. "We're set to go." he told Snix, and she answered with a quick nod, grabbing another packet of money and shoving it down the front of her cleavage. Typical.
"Let's get out of here." she ordered, pointing to their "door," a hole blown in the wall. They clambered out; her first, followed by Z and finally Dave.
In retrospect, Dave should probably have gone first. Then he would have seen the Agents who had just entered right into their exit route and were currently running towards their group.
"Fuck." was all he managed to say, before the three of them were thrown backwards into a wall.
Frankenteen was leading this mission, which was never a good thing in Porcelain's opinion. Whilst it was just great that he could smash through a building with barely any effort, he was certainly lacking in the brain department, and everyone knew that wasn't the way a leader was supposed to work. But Porcelain had never been the type to lead a group. Too much effort, and he always preferred to hang back and look pretty until someone interesting came along to fight. And by interesting, he meant The Fury.
Thankfully, Goldstar was here to keep the big lug under check so he didn't make any stupid decisions. Those two were some of the many Agency members who decided to work in specific teams, although they were more a pair than anything. Goldstar's powers, aside from her impressive combat abilities, consisted of vocal manipulation. In short, she could make people do what she wants by telling them. You should hear her sing.
Either way, she wasn't too bad at strategy, so Porcelain thought they might actually be all right. Last time he was teamed up with Frankenteen, Goldstar was sick, and the elephantine man somehow ended up hanging upside down by his size 20 feet. After managing to take out The Fury, as per usual, Porcelain had to go and rescue him before a whole building exploded, and the whole villain group had escaped. A rare occurrence. The Fury and his gang weren't exactly the best of the League of Doom.
Speaking of which, the place was singing like a bird with a whole litany of alarm bells. As per usual, subtlety was not a key feature of their operation. Or a feature at all.
"Let's head in." Frankenteen pointed to what appeared to be a massive hole in the wall in the back of the bank. Porcelain wondered if they wanted to be caught. They followed the route that the team had made and soon enough were close to the vault.
The Fury and his team walked straight into them. Typical. Before any of them could even react, Frankenteen rushed them and threw all three of them back. They slammed hard into a wall, too slow to dodge. "Fuck!" Porcelain heard The Fury curse. Excellent. He was already pissed off.
"Hey there, Fury." he teased, as the armored man stepped towards him.
"It's The Fury." his nemesis corrected. This was their routine. Every hero and their nemesis had one, and this was theirs. The banter was slightly different each time, but Porcelain always started with calling him 'Fury' without fail.
He wasn't exactly sure what had started their rivalry. They'd met at a shrink ray job a few years ago and something had just irked him about the man. He thought it was the outfit at first; it was an absolute monstrosity that couldn't decide whether it was armor or mecha, and the colors: a gaudy mix of red and yellow, really? But Porcelain knew now that it was more than that.
Porcelain knew his body pretty well.
An indiscriminate crashing noise diverted Porcelain from his thoughts. Goldstar made a break for Snix, and, weaving between three or four psychic razors. She grabbed the girl by the wrist and tried to flip her, but Snix was too strong and managed to pull away, shoving Goldstar to the ground as she did it. Clear of her, she jumped back and shot another razor, which was only just dodged. It caught Goldstar on the shoulder, and though her uniform and the skin underneath stayed intact, the pain that flared up from the hit was more than enough to stop her moving the arm.
All this happened while Frankenteen took on Z, like he always did whenever they fought this particular team. Depending on what group you were set with that week or month, most people usually settled with the same opponent. Porcelain was a little different because he tended to be sent on whatever mission The Fury was on, so no matter what, he knew what he was facing. And if The Fury wasn't there, he'd just take on whatever spare villain was left.
Z started by freezing Frankenteen's feet to the floor and getting a few cold punches in. It seemed to make little difference to the gargantuan hero, but Z wasn't discouraged. Even as Frankenteen broke free and smashed through the ice that Z was surrounding himself with, he just kept on icing, until eventually the huge man slipped and tumbled to the ground with a resounding boom that seemed to shake the building.
Porcelain sighed. Sometimes you had to do everything yourself.
With a deft kick to what he knew was a weak point in The Fury's suit – the back of the knees – he sent his opponent flying. The Fury stumbled to his feet pretty quickly, but definitely not fast enough, because Porcelain was already towering over him, and as the metal-encased man stared upwards, he was met with the gaze of Frankenteen. Well, Porcelain as Frankenteen. He couldn't copy his teammate perfectly, but he had enough of his superhuman strength to pluck The Fury up like he weighed nothing and fling him aside like a ragdoll. Too easy.
Snix was next, and Porcelain always had a bit of fun with her. She was feisty. He leapt towards her, still as Frankenteen, gaining a fair bit of height that would have come crashing down hard, if he hadn't transformed mid-jump. Instead, a lithe foot padded down with barely a sound, and Porcelain rolled his shoulders, adjusting to the sizable breasts that now weighed him down. Porcelain didn't envy Snix; these things were annoying.
He couldn't help but smile when Snix hissed – literally hissed – at him. Another thing about her was that she hated being mimicked. Porcelain knew this, after all, there were much easier ways to defeat her than to copy her, but this was way more fun.
A few curse words and a gabble of Spanish he didn't understand later, Snix launched herself at him, her hands glowing with two psychic razors. She aimed straight for his head, but Porcelain had already ducked down and jumped out her way. He had the distinct advantage of carrying the permanent powers he'd acquired over time; his speed and agility were unmatched by her, despite her talent, and his reactions were faster than hers. Added to that his invulnerability, he was pretty much guaranteed to win this.
She barely had time to spin on her heels before he sprang at her, his feet digging hard into her stomach, both winding her and knocking her onto her back. Then, he held her there, pinning her and barely resisting a witty comment, since she seemed adamant in ripping out his hair.
"Go to sleep, Snix." Goldstar's voice emanated from somewhere beside Porcelain, and Snix immediately relaxed underneath him. God, he envied her for that power. He'd tried to copy it many a time, with no success. It was just too advanced.
With Snix down, that only left Z, who was frantically grabbing a helmet. Porcelain knew it was designed to work against powers like Goldstar's. He would have to be quick. He bounded over to Z in a few steps, wishing he had telekinesis, and attempted to wrestle the helmet out of his hands. Almost immediately, he regretted this, as a sudden explosion of pain rippled through his arms. Z's ice crept up his body like the cold of a thousand winters, and it hurt like frostbite ten times over. He staggered backwards, desperately trying to ignore the pain, to morph so he could be warm again, but his powers weren't responding. His body wouldn't shift in its frozen state, so he fell to the floor, whining in Snix's voice, curling up and begging the planet to make this stop.
He could hear shouting and movement, and he knew that he would have to move, have to ignore the pain and just get up to fight. Move. Move!
Porcelain dragged himself to his feet, eyebrows furrowed in sheer concentration as he forced his body to shift to someone, anyone but this frozen form.
He didn't mean to become The Fury. The stocky figure was unfamiliar to him; this was the first time he'd worn it. He could feel the thick layer of muscle and that extra chub between him and his clothes and – oh, that was going to piss The Fury off – he hadn't copied the suit, so he was dressed in Porcelain's skintight outfit.
The Fury was going to kill him almost as soon as he realized. Ah, yep, there it was: an aggravated shout and a barely dodged punch to the face. "You piece of shit!" he yelled, "Get the hell out of me!"
"That's what she sa- oof!" Porcelain let out a low grunt as he was shoved to the ground. The same sort of grunt he heard pretty often, when he was kicking The Fury's ass.
He was having trouble with this body – it was like it didn't fit him properly. This sometimes happened when he shifted into someone for the first time. It had been hours before he could get used to Frankenteen's form, and the worst thing is how hard it was to shift out of it.
Yeah, he was stuck. So now he'd have to fight off The Fury in all his suited up glory, completely and utterly barehanded, in a body that was not only exactly equal to his opponent, but that he couldn't even use properly. Great.
The Fury's suit was damaged, that was a start. Porcelain realized this as an armored fist caught him on the jaw. Clearly, The Fury had self hate issues; he rarely hit that hard. Pain shot through him, the kind of pain that would put most men out of commission for a few minutes at least. But Porcelain wasn't deterred. As the next fist came down, he reached out and grabbed it with his hands, cursing loudly as The Fury retaliated by shooting out of the guns on his wrist.
Porcelain was bad with bullets. They wouldn't kill him, unless they hit anything vital, but they damn well hurt, and he'd be losing blood. Better than knives, but his invulnerability really worked best against big or blunt objects.
He was getting frantic now, and for fuck's sake, where were his team? He tried to shift again, but his body wasn't having it.
Desperate, he scrambled for some iota of power locked inside The Fury. He begged and pleaded for it to do something, reached inside the part that usually responded by flaring up and doing something spectacular but…nothing. He couldn't feel a thing, not even something crap and totally embarrassing like the ability to make his hair glow pink. So the Fury had been telling the truth all this time. He really had no powers.
Fucking useless. The Fury really was totally reliant on his suit, the suit that Porcelain didn't have.
Right, his suit! If Porcelain could somehow take that out…but, fuck, he was stuck in this body and none of his normal powers would really help out, except…
He'd touched Z briefly, earlier. It was a long shot – Porcelain was never sure how much contact he had to have with someone to steal a bit of their powers, but worth a try. When The Fury's fist swung towards him again, he grasped it, thought the coldest, iciest thoughts he could, and squeezed his eyes shut.
A blast of cold air, a loud cracking sound and a stream of swear words, and Porcelain knew he'd won.
Well, even in a shifting world like Kurt's, some things never changed.