Chapter Text
“—Notorious duo Terrarium and Mineral seen again at the arrest of the villain Tether. Updates are still pending as to the identity behind the mask. While we have them to thank for putting this criminal behind bars, we cannot ignore their own criminal nature. Call the vigilante tip line if you have any possible information at–”
Grace ignores setting down his keys in favor of grabbing his remote to turn the tv off. He chooses not to listen to the usual chatter about how his best friends were doing something wrong. Legally, they were, but he also knows that Rocky and Adrian made the streets safer at night.
His apartment goes quiet after that. He tries to ignore the impending quiet that comes with the late night and the tv being turned off. His keys get set on the tray and his coat gets thrown over the back of his chair.
Bags of groceries are set down on the counter. If it was up to him, he would just get the ready-made meals and call it a day. Unfortunately for Grace, he has two friends that can and will bug him about eating something that didn’t come in a plastic container.
Like normal, he makes sure that the fire escape window is unlocked by the time the sun goes down. Adrian and Rocky have a longstanding habit of dropping by unannounced for a break, to scare the life out of him, or to raid his fridge.
Honestly, Grace is starting to think the last option is the real reason they make him get groceries. Okay, that’s a lie, they love him too much to only show up for food. They also use his tv. All jokes aside, he does actually like their visits. It’s a reminder that they haven’t gotten caught yet.
As if following their long-standing routine, the window lets out a whoosh and in bursts Rocky. Following him was Adrian at a much more sedate pace. Ah, there they were. Given the news segment and Adrian's hood being down, they were there for the night.
“Grocery day,” Rocky called, jumping over the table to examine the bags. “Did you get me anything?”
Without looking, Grace reaches into a bag and pulls out the frosted animal crackers. The moment that Rocky's eyes caught them, they were snatched out of Grace’s hand. Before the shapeshifter can eat any, Adrian grabs the bag and sets it back on the counter.
Adrian pulled a green vial out of her pocket and set it in front of Grace. The sight of it alone seemed to calm down Rocky’s bouncy demeanor.
“Is this what I think it is,” Grace asked, “Or did you just decide to present me with mystery sludge again?”
“Okay, that was one time and you know how accidentally helpful that stuff was to that case,” Rocky said.
He does know that it was accidentally important because it left burns that took too darn long to heal. That had been quite a fun one to explain to his coworkers. Granted it had definitely been worth it considering just how many dots it had managed to connect. Grace still feels like he’s allowed to be salty about it, though.
Adrian slaps a hand over his face and said, “It’s what you think it is. Finally managed to collect a sample from that warehouse on 25th.”
“What was it doing there,” Grace questioned while flicking on the stove.
“You’re guess is about as good as ours,” Adrian said. “We think that it might have been cleared before we got there. But given that cameras are always down on 25…”
“...It’s no dice on the footage,” Grace said, finishing the thought.
Rocky snapped his fingers and said, “Exactly.”
“How’s about I start on making dinner and you two get changed. Rocky, you're helping me chop vegetables after,” Grace said.
Given the fact that Adrian’s vigilante costume mostly consisted of everyday wear -with extra protection-, she would probably be fine if she took off the masquerade mask. But the last thing Grace needs is for someone to walk into his apartment and ask why Mineral is just chilling on the couch.
“Why do I have to help cut veggies?”
“Because Adrian helped last time,” Grace replied.
Grace calls for Adrian to pull out his equipment so they can figure out what compounds made up the vial; he would figure that out after dinner. He had the feeling this would be a very long night.
At some point when he and Rocky were making food, the duo caught Grace staring at his equipment and the vial just sitting there. Rocky sighed and took over the kitchen so he could go run his investigation. He chooses to ignore both of his best friends as they called him a nerd.
Some of it was stuff that they had gotten him solely for their vigilante work. Then there was the centrifuge that he had been gifted for his birthday one year. His brain still twitched at how expensive it had to be.
His brain seems to tune everything out around him as he gets to work running various tests of the little material he was given. Formulas are jotted down on a piece of paper as he tries to make sense of just how the forbidden juice was supposed to work.
Grace didn’t even realize how absorbed he was into the work until the vial was taken from his hand and a dish was set in front of him. He had to do a full reset of his brain for him to be able to acknowledge the change, it's moments like these that he's glad they were there.
----
Dodge, block, shove opponent at Rocky, kick, dodge. It’s a fairly simple process and she never quite trusts when nights are easy like this. There's always something or it’s the calm before the storm.
Even if the night is stressing her out a bit, she loves the rush of adrenalin that comes from cracking her knuckles against someone's face. The wind blows across her mask as she gives a roundhouse kick to one of her assailants. The man stumbles back before she knocks him clean out with an uppercut.
There's a knife that flies past her. Just barely off from cutting across Adrian’s masquerade mask. She looks slightly up and to the left where the knife had come from. At the end of her gaze is the man known as the Butcher. She’s seen enough cases to know that if the man wanted to hit her it wouldn’t be hard to.
It’s hard to see the villain from so far away, but he seems to give a nod before disappearing. She didn’t find use in chasing after him because their outfits were similar in the way it would be easy to sink into the surroundings.
She whips around and drags the final attacker to the ground, following that Adrian pulled zip ties out of her pocket. This was the only guy who was left conscious: Eric Watson. The one who had been buying the chemicals that made up the concoction that had been a pain in the ass to get a hold of.
Rocky stands off to the side -shape shifted- as a guard as she kicks Eric in the side. The man winces as he is dragged up to look her in the eyes.
“Who’s your boss,” she said more than asked. The man doesn't give a reply. Ah, so he’s either loyal or trying to save his skin.
Adrian nods to Rocky as she drags the man to the building nearest to them. The man seems to know what’s going to happen because he starts to struggle in her grip. Against his will, they end up climbing the fire escape to the rooftop.
Still, he refuses to talk, so Adrian retaliates. She really wanted to know who was in charge of the gleam operation. And she’s got enough spite in her bones to go up the pyramid one by one until they get to the top.
It turns out that the man was a lot more willing to talk when the only thing keeping him attached to the building was tilted feet and her hand holding the collar of his shirt. She wouldn’t do it. The man was bad, don’t get her wrong. But there's a certain level of bad that someone has to be before she crosses a line like that.
“Okay! I’ll tell you; just please let me down,” The man cried. Adrian pulled him fully back onto the cement. The guy was smart enough not to test his luck at the moment. “I wasn’t given a name–”
Adrian moved to shove him, but the guy started talking faster, “–They told me that his name is Eyes! Y’know ‘cause he has night vision.”
Someday, Adrian prayed, people will stop giving themselves shitty crime names. She decides that’s not her problem right now and knocks his ass out. She pulls the man into a fireman's carry before climbing back down the side of the building.
Adrian and Rocky do the usual ritual of gathering the men into a pile before leaving a tip to the local police department. They were long gone by the time any law enforcement showed up to see their gift.
There’s a split second where something catches their eye, but it’s gone before she can mention it too Rocky. She crosses rooftops a little bit faster, nothing out that late at night is something that they want to run into. She’s tense until they make it back home.
—
The moment that the Butcher makes it home; he swaps out his outfit and specialized prosthetic for clothing that wouldn’t get him arrested on sight. He adds a new name to the board hidden in the back of his closet; Simon had been trying to figure out what Eyes was connected to for a hot minute.
He’s not sure why he helped that vigilante. It wasn’t solidarity, he knows that for certain. Tabloids had made it clear as glass on his position in the masked community, and he isn’t inclined to change views on him now.
So, it’s not that. Simon knows that it wasn’t that he needed the duo for information collecting, he could have figured out what they did on his own. Probably could have gotten more if he did it himself. But he didn’t intervene other than to help Terrarium.
If they weren’t so focused on their mission, the vigilantes probably would have gone after him. Why, why, why, why, why did he help them? It irks him to know that he acted without reason, to save someone he didn’t know, and he can’t even figure out what would make him do that.
The moment he realized that he wasn’t breathing, he took a sharp inhale of breath and let it sit there for a moment. Simon’s not getting anywhere from spiraling like this. It’s very unfortunate that his brain can’t register that fact. Very, very unfortunate yet he can’t fix it now.
His apartment is quiet enough for him to hear the faint humming of every appliance in his panicked state. It’s enough for him to cave and sacrifice constant vigilance for his headphones. The moment that the music started playing, all other sounds were drowned out, and the shadows of the room seemed to retreat back into the walls.
When he checks the time, it’s well past 3 in the morning; also known as the time that Simon would rather just eat a granola bar and go to bed than eat an actual meal. He doesn't want to waste 15 minutes making a box of mac and cheese.
He hates nights like this. He never knew when they were going to pop out of the woodworks. Just one moment he’s fine then bam, there goes any chance Simon has at having a decent night post going out. But he really has no other choice but to grin and bear it.