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Morgan never exactly, how would he put it… excelled. In any aspect of his life, really. From his education to his villainy, he was always solidly at a D level. He had managed to worm his way into community college, studying as an architecture major before he realized he had more interest in the adrenaline that came from stealing from buildings as opposed to designing them, only for them to be destroyed by an S or A tier villain. He will admit, understanding blueprints and certain architectural choices definitely makes his not-job easier.
But, heists take too long to plan to properly sustain his income, so he takes part time jobs, and this one has been going surprisingly well.
Morgan is a hard worker, they’ve never been fired from their jobs because of their own wrongdoings, it’s always been superheroes picking up their workplace to throw at the next hotshot supervillain. But, they’ve been pleasantly surprised at the fact that no city-ravaging fights have taken place around the small coffee shop they work at. It’s been strangely peaceful, all things considered. Morgan doesn’t exactly have a name for themself, so it’s easy to pretend to be a civilian without fear of being recognized.
The coffee shop, cleverly named ‘Coffee Toffee’ (Morgan frankly thinks it’s the stupidest fucking name he’s ever had the misfortune of reading), isn’t busy at all right now. Tuesdays are usually slow, anyway, especially in the afternoon. It’s nice and quiet, the only noise coming from the calm tune playing from the speakers.
Morgan likes the quiet, in fact, they actively embrace the pleasure of not having to speak to customers. They’ve made themselves a sugary drink that tastes like smores and are sitting criss cross on a stool behind the counter, scrolling through Twitter. They have a content look on their face, the feeling of calm almost bringing a giddiness to them.
Something cuts through their quiet time—the innate feeling of being watched. Morgan looks up warily and notices a slightly familiar face staring at them through the store windows. The figure has an unreadable expression on their face, but it immediately turns to embarrassment upon Morgan locking eyes with them.
The person quickly shuffles into the shop, the bell chiming pleasantly as the door opens. “I-I’m sorry,” they mumble apologetically.
Morgan recognizes this person as a regular customer. He’s never actually gotten their name, now that he thinks about it. They have short, silvery hair and dark brown eyes with flecks of gold and dusty brown skin. They have a long black coat over a light grey turtleneck, with black, high waisted dress pants and black platform boots. They have a satchel bag draped around their shoulder and thin, silver square glasses.
“Good afternoon,” they greet Morgan a deep, buttery smooth voice, completely contrasting to their flustered demeanor. They smile awkwardly.
“Afternoon.” Morgan nods and stands up from the stool, putting his drink and phone down on the counter. “What can I get for you?” He gives them a warm smile.
“May I get what you’re having?” They point towards Morgan’s drink on the counter.
“Not your usual?” Morgan jokes.
They blush slightly. “I felt like branching out today.”
Morgan leans his hands on the counter. “Sorry, dude. We don’t sell that drink.”
The person fumbles in their bag and pulls out an $100 bill. “Would this change your mind?” they ask earnestly.
Morgan stares at it in shock. “I— yes?? Yes, oh my god. You’re serious?”
“Very.” They smile at Morgan, a newfound happiness to their composure.
Morgan clamps the person’s hands in theirs, staring into their eyes. “Thank you. So much. You are a godsend.”
The person’s eyes widen, an enamor that’s unnoticed by Morgan shining in their eyes. “J-Just being a kind samaritan. Giving back to the community, all that jazz.”
“Yeah. Yeah! That makes sense.” Morgan giddily starts making the drink. “You can sit down, I won’t take that long.”
“Of course.” They sit down at a nearby table and pull out a book, ‘Paradise Lost’.
Morgan cannot believe his luck. Sure, he’d seen this customer around a few days a week, but they never looked like the type to just hand out money to people. Maybe things are finally looking up in his direction.
-------
Alex is so glad for their shapeshifting ability, because otherwise their face would be a bright, bright red. They could direct boats at nighttime with how red their face would be right now. They’re talking those heavy duty flashlights bright.
And that’s enough dwelling on that possibility. With Alex’s powers, hypotheticals easily become realities. Wouldn’t want that happening in front of the cute barista.
Alex first noticed him a month or two ago. This isn’t a shop they would be found dead in if it weren’t for Morgan, but they frequently pass by. But when they noticed him while taking a leisurely stroll back to their lair, they quite literally stopped in their tracks. Quite frankly, this barista makes Alex act like a fool and they have no clue as to why. They’ve had passing crushes before, none of them have been able to tame them better than any superhero could.
But, Alex being Alex, can’t possibly fathom just walking up to the beautiful stranger and asking for their number, so they’ve been expressing their feelings in much more subtle ways. Giving them one hundred bucks was frankly one of the most outward expressions of their feelings they’ve done. For the most part, Alex has been expressing their love by not destroying the coffee shop, making sure every city-flattening fight that they get into is a safe distance away from the shop.
Sure, maybe it’s not healthy to bottle up their emotions until they inevitably explode all over everyone’s everything, but being ‘healthy’ is unheard of to a freak of nature like Alex.
Morgan walks up to Alex and hands them their drink. It smells sickly sweet and they almost regret asking for it. Almost. “Thank you again, thank you so much,” he says.
The gesture is adorable to Alex, and they nearly choke on their next words. “It’s really no problem at all.” They give him a smile. “Especially for a barista as cute as—”
The windows shatter around them with an ear piercing crash, glass shards flying into the store. “D!” There’s a loud roar from outside the store.
“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding—” Morgan rushes to behind the counter and hops back out with a face mask wrapped tightly to their face, their apron thrown off in favor for a cloak, where the hood falls over his head. “Be right back! Sorry!” He jumps through the empty hole where the window once was.
Alex sits there, in shock. Not from the fact that there was just an attack at their place of residence—that’s happened more times than they can count on their fingers—but that they almost called Morgan cute.
Morgan, the villain, D.
Okay, Alex is dumbfounded about two things. They manage to snap themselves out of their trance and rush over to the window, grabbing their drink as they do.
D holds two swords made of light in their hands, batting off strikes from their nemesis, The Lion. Neither are high ranked in their powers, and are usually evenly matched, as nemeses will often be, but D seems to be struggling more than usual at this fight.
Alex takes one good look at Lion, taking a long sip of their drink and nearly coughing—maybe at the fact that it’s insanely sweet, maybe at the fact that they may have swallowed a glass shard—and immediately deduces that yep, those are superpower steroids, or whatever they’re called. Alex would know, they’ve helped smuggle them. But what’s a ‘noble’ hero doing with those kinds of substances?
D skids across the concrete, digging his swords into the pavement so he doesn’t fall, and nearly loses a limb when The Lion goes for another swipe with his claws, but still cutting sickly gash marks into D’s back. He hisses in pain.
Alex takes their glasses off, discarding them to the side. Alright, time to get nasty.
-------
Morgan is just distracted from the comment the customer was about to make earlier. Yeah, that’s it. Nothing else. That must be why he’s losing this fight. He’s never been good, but he’s never gone down this quickly.
He wrenches his swords from the concrete and quickly spins around, blocking another blow from the Lion’s claws, but the superhero doesn’t falter, pushing down at the blades instead of rearing back for another attack.
With the searing pain ripping from his shoulder blade down to his lower back, to the force of what is best described as a semi truck pushing down on him, Morgan realizes, oh god , he might actually die here. He’ll die unimportant to the world except for another villain off the kill list.
Still, Morgan has never been a quitter, and they will never be a quitter until the day they die. Which might be right now, actually. But, they push up with their swords with as much force as they can possibly muster, grunting with the effort.
Before Morgan can even dedicate their entire life savings to their cat, they’re quite literally swept up off their feet and can suddenly feel the cold air flying through their hair and causing piercing pain to their already throbbing wounds. “What the fuck—” They look up at their savior-not-savior.
Carrying him, bridal style, is none other than S, the supervillain who’s said to be a demigod, who every baby supervillain aspires to be, who has escaped death thousands, if not millions of times and has taken down even the world’s most powerful team of heroes.
…And they’re holding the drink Morgan made in their hand.
“Good afternoon.” S looks down at Morgan and smirks. “You seem to be having a bit of trouble.”
“What the fuck.” Morgan tries to writhe out of S’s grasp. “What the fuck!?”
S holds them firmly in place, leaning closer to Morgan’s ear. “Stop. You’re going to irritate your wounds.” An unwilling shiver goes down his spine at the tone. There’s time to process this later, he’s bleeding out right now.
“Bandages. Do you have bandages?” Morgan hurriedly asks.
“Calm down for a moment, yes.” S gently places Morgan down, where he can finally look at his surroundings and can see that he is on the top of a building. He fights the urge to scream. A roll of bandages materializes in S’s hand. “I can soothe it, but I can’t fully heal it.”
“I don’t care,” Morgan growls through gritted teeth.
“I’m just telling you to not push yourself.” S efficiently wraps the bandages around Morgan’s wounds, and they immediately feel the soothing effect take place. They sigh in relief. “Better?” S asks.
“Yes. Thank you. But why’d you save me? You’re a big hotshot, and I’m… well, y’know.” They gesture vaguely to themselves. “Not.”
“I’ve had my eye on you for quite a while, y’know. And I don’t mean as a villain.” S takes a long sip of the drink, making a small face that Morgan only barely catches. “Just found that out today.”
Morgan blinks up at S. “Y-Yeah. Cool. Cool.” He feels his face grow hot. “C-Can we focus at the matter at hand?” He waves his hands frantically.
“I suspect through drugs he’s become at least an A tier. Nothing too difficult,” S contemplates.
“I’m a D tier!” Morgan protests. “Where the fuck can I get those drugs?”
“Horrible side effects, don’t worry about it.” S waves their hand, effectively dodging the question and shutting it down at the same time. “I suspect he’ll be up here in around, 3… 2… 1…”
Right on cue, lion bursts out from a window on the side of the building, floating up to the two villains.
“He could not do that before. He definitely could not do that before!” Morgan shrieks, backing up directly into S’s legs.
“Be a dear and don’t agitate those wounds, okay?” S pats Morgan on the top of the head gently and walks over to and off the edge of the building, not falling off and instead walking towards Lion. Morgan hates the feeling he gets when he’s pat on the head, and defiantly stands up.
The world spins around him for a moment before it finally stills. S is currently fighting Lion, the noises of the clashing of metal jarring Morgan’s brain. He realizes S is only using one hand to fight, using the other to sip out of his almost empty cup. That cocky bastard.
There’s a news helicopter flying nearby. S waves to it with a grin, then yawns. “D, you wanna finish him off?” they call out before grabbing Lion’s wrists and holding them in front of him.
Morgan scrambles for his sword and presses a button which makes the blade glow with hot blue fire and hurls it as hard as he can towards Lion, lodging it in his side. He yowls and stumbles, and S lets go of his wrists, letting him plummet towards the ground. They wave goodbye and grin, walking back over to Morgan.
“You really need to get better nemeses. I know a couple of guys that are more suited towards your style,” S remarks.
Morgan laughs nervously. “I-I’m fine, thanks.”
S shrugs. “Your loss.”
The door to the roof of the building slams open, hoards of police flowing out of the doorway.
S extends a hand towards Morgan. “Shall we?”
Morgan takes one last glance at the policemen and flips them off, roughly grabbing S’s hand and jump off the roof.
The fall is quickly shortened when S and them are teleported to a much less open space. An insanely nice living room with a large TV and a gaming console beneath the screen.
S breathes heavily. “I feel we need to talk it out when you jump off of buildings.”
“Hoooly shit.” Morgan grins giddily, their face definitely red from the adrenaline and nothing else. “That was so fucking cool.”
S chuckles, squeezing Morgan’s hand, which is still in theirs. “My name is Alex, for the record.”
“Y-Yeah! We don’t even know each other’s name— uh, I’m Morgan!” He’s suddenly aware of the lack of weight in one of his hands, and looks around frantically. He whines upon realizing what he’s lost. “My fucking sword!” He groans, leaning his head back, which causes him to wince in pain.
“I-I can get you a new one,” Alex hurriedly proposes.
“No, it’s fine. I’ll make it myself.” Morgan huffs in defeat. “I should probably get going, anyway.”
“Wait, why would you go?” They quickly ask.
“Well, I mean, I’m kinda intruding.” Morgan pulls down their hood and ruffles their hair. “Wouldn’t wanna overstay my welcome.”
“No, no! I don’t mind you staying! Really!” A switch seems to have flipped in their brain, from S to Alex. This is the awkward customer Morgan recognizes. “It’s fine. I’ve got plenty of space.”
Morgan smiles in genuine appreciation. “Thank you, for the third time, really.”
Alex stares at him. “Can I kiss you?” they blurt out before quickly putting their hands over their mouth. “Fuck— I mean— shit—”
Morgan stares at them, dumbfounded. “Y-Yeah, sure man—” His face immediately goes a tomato red.
“A-Are you sure? I don’t wanna force you—”
Morgan pulls his mask down and pushes his face into Alex’s. He’ll be honest, he’s never actually kissed someone before. Hell, he’s never even had someone like him like that before. He doubts it’s Alex’s first time, he doesn’t doubt that he’s insanely sloppy and bad at kissing. He only really sees it in the movies.
Morgan pulls back. Alex smiles lopsidedly. “W-Would you like to… stay the night, perhaps?”
“I’ll grab my cat and we’re good for a sleepover.” Morgan grins.
“It’s a deal, then.” Alex smiles.
-------
The next few weeks at the usually serene coffee shop are… hectic, to put it lightly. There are people in and out, wanting to try the coffee that was supposedly drank by the most notorious supervillain in the world. Of course, Alex has to see all of it for themselves.
The clock chimes two. Morgan stumbles out of the back, his eyes landing on Alex before tiredly walking up to them and sitting at the chair across from them, slamming their forehead on the table and groaning.
“Something the matter?” Alex grins.
“You’re a bitch.” Morgan looks up to glare at Alex, but there’s no real heat behind the gesture.
“I simply gave you exposure.”
“What you gave me was more work. Do you know how many people tip these days? None! That’s who!” He throws his hands in the air.
“Funny, I remember a certain someone getting a certain triple digit tip from me the other day.” Alex takes a sip from their black coffee.
“Ha, ha. Very funny.” Morgan rolls his eyes. “Could you drink that any slower?”
“I could slow down time,” Alex proposes. “Then you’d just have to watch me slowly sip this coffee.” Their voice crescendos down to a low growl.
“Y’know what—” Morgan snatches the coffee, taking three gulps that should not be possible for a man of their size, effectively draining the cup of its contents. Their face scrunches up in a disgusted look, but they crumple up the cup and throw it in the garbage can, grabbing Alex by the wrist and practically dragging them out of the shop. “We’re watching a movie at your place.”
“You are the main factor in my electricity bill.”
“I know you don’t pay taxes, you fraud.” Morgan continues to drag them through the streets. Alex sighs and snaps their fingers, and the two are back at their lair. “Thank you,” Morgan says in a sing songy voice, practically throwing his shoes off and jumping onto the bed, patting the space beside him as if he was gesturing a dog.
Alex sighs, slipping off their shoes and sitting next to Morgan, where he promptly rests his head on their chest. “I don’t trust you with caffeine,” they remark.
“Oh, you haven’t seen shit yet.” Morgan grins worryingly.
“Am I supposed to be worried?” Alex raises his eyebrow.
“Are you public enemy number one?”
“Yes.”
“Then yes, you should.” Morgan laughs and turns on the TV, pulling up a random show. Despite the caffeine, he blacks out within minutes, leaving Alex to gently run their fingers through his hair.
Fighting and bloodshed is all Alex has known for as long as they can remember. But, looking down at Morgan, resting peacefully on their chest, maybe that could change.
Of course, not completely. They’re still villains, after all.