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 Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:15 am
Y'know what, Arsenolite thought to himself, grinning. Today feels like a day for some mischief. He'd already been having fun all day online, going off on brainless morons willing to engage with troll accounts. So many people just loved trying to educate the supposedly brainless. On any given day he was anyone he wanted to be, just to argue with idiots and waste their time. It gave him a thrill, being so in control over other people. So when his stomach growled while he was out at night doing energy harvesting, the opportunity had clearly presented itself for something a little more tangible. Sure, he could think he knew that someone on the other side of the screen was typing furiously, chest heaving with increased rage as their breathing and heart rates went up, but wouldn't it be so much more fun to do it in person? To watch someone slowly lose their mind, standing in front of him, as he relished in their fear instead? All dressed up the way he was, it would be so easy to frighten whatever poor schmuck had to deliver food this late to someone who definitely looked like they killed people for a living? He shivered with anticipation just at the thought. Quickly, he powered down, called for delivery to be paid in cash at the destination—giving the name Hawkeye, thinking himself clever—and sat down on a bench to wait after powering back up. Now this... this would make his night interesting.
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 12:46 am
Vanya hated making deliveries to Destiny City’s various parks, he really did. Not that he particularly enjoyed any aspects of his job. (Well, okay, he appreciated the regular lack of need to worry about food because he and the other employees got their pick of the carry-out orders that didn’t get picked up, that got returned for whatever reason, etc. He also liked his bosses about as well as you could like a boss; the Nagisas were kind and treated him well, and the fact that he knew how to make the modem and router behave had seemingly put him in their good-books for the next foreseeable ever. But that was beside the point.)
Point was: most of the aspects of his job that involved actually interfacing with the customers? Vanya could have done without, and people ordering delivery to one of the city’s parks ranked pretty highly on the list of his dislikes. So many of the assholes who pulled this s**t on him thought they were being funny, giving names like “Seymour Titsworth,” “Lou Briccant,” “Buck Nekkid,” and “Princess Consuela Banana-Hammock,” knowing that they’d force their hapless delivery-person to say those names out loud, in public, probably multiple times, in a location where more than one person would probably hear the nonsense and decide to take cell-phone video to put on the Internet because they thought it was funny. Others were just inconsiderate, like giving some average joe name and providing basically no helpful description for how to find them.
Tonight’s jackass had at least been creative, Vanya guessed. “Hawkeye” was not a name that he saw on his delivery orders………ever. Sort of cringe, honestly—like, even if Marvel s**t had still been cool (and outside of the Loki, Moon Knight, and Falcon and the Winter Soldier series, it really wasn’t), why would you be so loyal to Hawkeye, of all possible characters? Maybe the Kate Bishop version, okay, Vanya could see that. But most people only ever meant Clint Barton, and Vanya had firmly hated The Boring a*****e White Guy Who Adds Nothing Whatsoever To The Story long before Avengers: Endgame made it cool to hate him.
At least it made the object of this delivery easy to find: rocking up to Ramsett Park on his bike, Vanya easily spotted the black trench-coat douchebag sitting alone on a bench, carrying some obviously fake cosplay bow. Not wearing purple, but maybe the guy had some semblance of dignity. “Mister Barton, I presume,” Vanya deadpanned, coming over to the bench and checking the receipt stapled to the bag. “It’s just gonna be $25.43 and you can enjoy your tempura.”
And be completely helpless when Loki, the actual main character, shows up, Vanya decided to leave unsaid.
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 1:45 am
"Oh, please, Mr Barton was my father," he said with a laugh, handing over exact change and then an extra fiver on top. Look, he may have been about to terrify the guy, but he also figured the least he could do was still tip like a decent person. (Honestly, the bigger assholes here were whoever was just sending people to deliver food to the parks at night alone in the first place...) He twirled his bow in his hands, an arrow having already been set into it. "Do you often run into dangerous people, doing this kind of thing so late at night? Just on a bike, not even a car to protect you? Nobody else around..." He couldn't help the sly grin taking over his face as he kept his bow at the ready, just aimed at the ground.
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 2:00 am
Ah, sweet legal tender. And at least tonight’s park delivery a*****e had enough kindness in his heart to use exact change. Vanya wasn’t about to stan the guy—because decency to use exact change or not, he had still asked Vanya to deliver food to Ramsett Park instead of an actual street address—but he could at least appreciate that he didn’t have to try and make change for a $50 or $100, the way that some people around here would ask for.
Sure, he lingered a moment, to make sure that the cash got put away properly……but he was not expecting any conversation out of Not-Exactly-Mr. Barton. Which earned the other man a set of pursed lips and a deeply confused squint, before Vanya had even processed what the questions were. “There’s a coven of militant anarchist polyamorous lesbians who live right over there,” he said flatly, pointing at the building he knew very well and trying to give this douchebag the most Completely Over It attitude that he could muster. “I’ve delivered to them often enough for them to know me and like me. You want to try anything? I have backup from at least three and as many as eight angry women who don’t like cops, but have an even more powerful dislike for people being mean to their delivery-boy.”
Strictly speaking, Vanya wasn’t sure when or how they’d all decided that he was their delivery-boy now……but the fact that they’d adjusted their ordering patterns around when they could reasonably assume he’d be on-shift? Spoke volumes, in his mind.
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 2:08 am
Anarchist polyamorous lesbians? Okay, well, color Arsenolite intrigued.... just too bad they were lesbians and not bisexual, because getting absolutely trounced by a group of hot women honestly sounded pretty ********' good to him—but that was getting off track. The twerp in front of him wasn't the slightest bit concerned for his safety! Well. "Mm, yeah, but how quick could they possibly be when you can't call for help?" he said, grin turning darker as he let go of his bow with one hand and grabbed Vanya's arm. He began the process of energy draining immediately, smirking. "Not so tough now, are you? Don't worry, you'll be able to bike back to your job in a few minutes. Guess you'll lose out on some more tips, though, since you won't be able to do more deliveries." Once he had enough, just enough to make sure Vanya couldn't recover quickly enough, he teleported to the Negaverse with his food. Now that had been exhilarating.
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Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2023 2:33 am
Not a cosplayer or ******** LARP weirdo.
The thought flashed through Vanya’s mind as the a*****e grabbed his arm. As he felt something getting sucked out of him, the thought echoed: Definitely NOT a ******** LARP weirdo.
Negaverse weirdo. The kind that Asmo had warned him about. Like the woman in Southside Park who’d done the thing to make his chest feel like liquid. And this—this must’ve been what she was doing that had gotten Asmo all pissed off and fighting her in the first place. Out of spite more than concern for his own wellbeing, Vanya tried to resist. ******** Nega-weirdos with their energy-stealing, and taking people’s soul-stars or whatever, and generally making things all ******** up for normal people out here, just trying to do their ******** jobs! God, at least the Dark Mirror weirdos mostly kept to themselves.
“You were my last trick of the night, ********> Vanya was pretty sure the a*****e didn’t hear him on the way out. But shouting something at him felt better than going gentle. “And your last-season trench-coat looks <******** stupid!”
Not that Vanya actually knew what in fashion was ever “last season” or not.
Not that saying so made his head stop throbbing or helped him get up out of the snow.
Vanya barely had enough wherewithal to text Nagisa-san that he’d gotten jumped after making his last delivery, and he couldn’t clock out back at the restaurant properly but the guy’s money was safe and he’d bring it in tomorrow. Assuming he could get out of bed tomorrow. Which felt like a pretty big ask, at the moment.
He didn’t get up until Alayne, from the coven, was passing through with some late-night grabs from the bodega up the street. Spotting their delivery boy collapsed in the snow, she came right over to help him up, then took him and his bike up to the coven’s place for tea.
At least some people in Destiny City had ******** manners.
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