Project ROWDY 2-3

A dozen flashbulbs went off right in his frickin’ face, bright enough that fire-truck red retinas whited out for a fraction of a second.

As the world bleached itself into nothing but afterimage and heat, the leader of the world’s most powerful super-team didn't so much as flinch. Where his brothers rubbed their eyes (Boomer almost whined about it, hands over his face), Brick's pupils had already reset, vision clearing faster than the camera's shutter speed could cycle. The ghostly silhouette of a too-smiley talk-show host faded quick, replaced by the next flash hitting half a second later.

"-nd you boys, I mean, my god, I wouldn’t believe it if I didn’t see it all myself. What an in-cre-dible story! Triple-handedly stopping a planetary invasion!" The host leaned forward over his desk to the three boys seated to his side; teeth too white, suit too expensive. "Tell us, what was going through your minds?"

Brick felt his mouth do the thing Cecil had drilled into them during media prep; corner twitching into that GDA-approved, camera-friendly half-smile. Unfortunately, nothing he could do was enough to make the expression reach his eyes, leaving him looking half as dead upstairs as the night show host in front of him. "We were focused on the mission,” Brick answered honestly as he could. "Saving lives is always our first priority."

Liar. First priority had been blowing off steam after finally waking up in a GDA healing pod after two months in a coma. Second had been making sure Butch didn't go full berserker on live satellite feed. Third was keeping Boomer from going full berserker on said same feed. Saving lives was maybe fourth. Fifth if we're being honest.

It was up there, though. 

At the very least, it was definitely a priority.

Which is what made dealing with such a ridiclous question so irritating. Who cares what they were thinking? You’re alive, aren’t you?

Unfortunately, ridiculous questions like this had been their life for the last week and it was making Brick want to punch through a wall just to feel something real.

Unfortunately unfortunately, the circus didn’t exactly stop there.

Barely a day after their party, everything had changed, superhero work suddenly a distant second as it was replaced by the dizzying, nauseating carousel of green rooms and sound stages on a never-ending press junket.

‘You saved the planet, boys,’ Cecil’s voice sounded off in Brick’s head. ‘You took on Omni-Man, came back and pushed back an invasion. The people need to see you everywhere and in their faces, to know you and love you. No questions asked. Get to it.’

Since then, it was nothing but a constant cycle of makeup brushes and microphones shoved in their faces, GDA VTOLs escorting them across the country every couple hours. Donald kept calling it "necessary public relations” but at least Cecil was honest when he described their torture trip as a ‘mandatory dog-and-pony show.’ 

One day it was a morning show in New York. A five AM call time, so outrageous Butch had threatened to murder everyone, especially the makeup artist. None of them knew what his brother was like so they had all just laughed at the ‘funny joke’ which… did not help the feelings of murder. Wrangling his brother in all day left Brick feeling out of it by the time they had another late-night slot in LA. where the host kept making jokes Brick didn't get. Why would we all date the same girl just because we’re triplets, weirdo?

Questions blurred one into another as they sat on plush couches that all felt the same, no matter what studio in the country; all of them smiling for a world that wanted heroes it could put on lunchboxes and sell for twelve dollars at Target.

Ten hours later, they were in Miami doing a teen magazine photoshoot, the one that had them spend a good four hours in a warehouse studio that smelled like model vomit.

Specifically, model vomit.

Boomer was mid-laugh, the only one of them still enjoying any of this bullshit, the blondy holding a puppy that had already pissed on him twice (not like Boomer even gave a shit). Butch was scowling, arms crossed, looking three seconds from suplexing the photographer into the lighting rig.

So… the usual.

Brick, on the other hand, had transcended emotion entirely and was just sitting on a low-grade background radiation of annoyance. Like… Chernobyl. 

Staring directly into the camera lens when the photographer had asked him to smile simply to see what would happen, boredom pushing him into it, had simply backfired. The editor had called his look  "mysterious" and smoldering but it was really just Brick being bored and thinking about violence.

Not like Butch, of course.

A cooler, more controlled violence.

…well, maybe not that controlled.

The next day, the three of them were sitting in on a morning news channel, the blonde anchor lady with perfect teeth leaning forward like she actually cared (to be fair, she did, but she had so much Botox her face barely even moved, so Brick felt it was fair for him to be suspicious). "But you all just turned thirteen, don’t you… don’t you ever feel the pressure might be too much on your little heads?"

Little h- Brick wanted to squeeze her little head, popping her gray matter like the insides of a Twinkie. Luckily for her, before he could say or do anything that might get Cecil mad,, his little brother had beamed at the newslady, all teeth and blond bright sunshine. "It’s just taking it one day at a time, Ms Weathers! It's, like, a super big honor to help people!"

…Gag me. Not because it was a lie (it wasn't, Boomer actually meant that shit), but because it was so painfully earnest it made his teeth hurt. Boomer always did spend too much personal time with Bubbles.

Yet, maybe it was spending all that time around Bubbles that had made Boomer the most personable out of the three of them. Personally, Brick hated every second of it and he knew Butch wasn’t far behind him most of the time. The oldest of the triplets felt his skin bristle at every single fake smile, teeth gritting at each pointless question that had answers written by the GDA media department three days in advance. 

He wasn’t (they weren’t) Inspiration porn for a world that needed to feel safe. Hell, he was more comfortable taking a plasma beam to the face than making small talk with a man whose toupee was held on with hope and hair spray.

The current host of tonight’s show appearance (some late-night guy named Jimmy or Johnny or James, as if it even mattered in the first place) grinned at them, the man in a suit leaning forward. "So, you boys play video games?"

Much more comfortable.

– o – o – o – o – o – o – o –

Hours and hours and soooo many hours later, artificial daylight of the television studios got replaced by cold honest moonlight, a full one hanging fat in the sky. All three of the Mojo Boys drifted a mile above the sleeping spine of the Rocky Mountains, the silence of nature welcome after a week of noise that made Brick want to tear his own ears off. Anything to get some fucking peace.

Below them, the rest of the world was dark and sleeping, blissfully unaware of the three quasi-gods hanging in its sky.

Lucky bastards.

Boomer floated atop a cloud. 

Not actually on it (the laws of physics still applied to them, some of them at least), but as his little bro lay on his back directly over a piece of cloud vapor with his hands laced behind his head, he looked for all the world like a kid sleeping on a piece of the sky. 

Which he basically was. Showoff.

"I'm so tired of smiling," Boomer mumbled, voice quiet puff of air as he finally spoke up. "My cheeks hurt. Like, for real for real. I think I pulled a face muscle."

Could have fooled me. Brick didn't say it out loud.

Butch floated nearby, entirely upside down, arms crossed over his chest in a way that made him look like an angry bat. He hadn't stopped vibrating since they'd left the last interview, his classic angry hum of unspent energy almost radiating off him in tangible waves.

"This the dumbest shit we ever done." Butch’s voice came out even rougher than usual, sandpaper on concrete.

"I dunno knooooow,” Boomer cut in, “We once tried to turn the moon into a giant disco ball."

That was your idea, Boomer. It had been his idea and Brick had to go along with it because it was Boomer’s turn to decide what they were gonna do that day. He just wasn’t sure why his brother had decided to go all Phineas & Ferb on them and try to bedazzle the moon.

Still, Brick had been bored and Butch had been… Butch. 

Long story short, the world had a rhinestone shortage for about a year. Still don’t know we’re ever gonna live that one down. Even Mojo had tried to lecture them on the ‘reckless endangerment’ of Earth’s satellite.

Whatever. He remembered snorting. The moon would've been fine.

Brick didn't respond to Butch, just watched the curve of the Earth instead. He felt hollowed out, something scraped raw inside him from a week of constant performance. He was a leader (apparently), a weapon (definitely), and someone who hit things until they stopped being problems (especially). 

He wasn't a mascot, not a fucking lunchbox design waiting to happen.

"Cecil wants to make sure we capitalize on our approval ratings," he said, words coming out flat and rehearsed, as he flickered through the memory of the Deputy Director’s briefing of a few days ago. "Solidify blah blah blah public image yadda yadda. Get the world used to the idea that we're the primary response team now."

It sounded like bullshit even saying it out loud.

"Yeah, but why us?" Boomer whined, rolling onto his stomach on his cloud-bed, chin propped on laced fingers. "Why aren't the New Guardians doing this? Isn't that, like, their whole job? Being all famous and stuff?"

Butch let out a sharp derisive laugh that echoed in the thin air, sound bouncing off mountains below. "We don't need Ol’ Big Brain over here to tell us that.” Even if Butch hadn’t jabbed a thumb over his way, Brick felt like he could have figured out who his little brother was referring to… somehow. “It's 'cause of one thing only, lil bro. The Nu-Guard are a two-pack of ass." He grinned, all teeth and vicious satisfaction. "Just straight buttcheeks."

"Bulletproof seems kinda strong," Boomer offered, trying to be fair in that way he always did that made Brick's teeth itch. “I dunno.”

"Buttcheeks," Butch repeated, as if it were a law of physics. A universal constant of ass. "You saw the invasion. They’re second-string now, and we’re the primetime punchers.”

“That’s a terrible name.”

“Anywaaaay…”  Butch shot Boomer a toxic glare. “Some of them… even hate us cause they ain’t us."

“Heh… anus.”

“Shut up, Boomer.”

That, Brick had to admit, was true.

Not the anus part, but everything else Butch had said.

And it was even more true now, after everything. The fight with Omni-Man and the subsequent alien invasion (the one where they'd woken up from healing pods and immediately gone to work)... it didn’t take GDA equipment to notice that something had changed in them in between those two and a half months unconscious. They’d pushed right past their limits; going right past healing them and into straight upgrades. 

A factory reset with better hardware, like a slower version of that weird little boost they’d gotten after the first time Omni-Man had… mollywopped them. He could feel it now, a deeper well of power humming beneath his skin, coiled and waiting.

Dangerous.

More dangerous.

"We're stronger now," he said, more to himself than to them. "Since we woke up. Faster, too."

"My shock blasts feel... cleaner," Boomer added, a small bolt of blue lightning crackling between his fingers, arcing from knuckle to knuckle. "Like, less static. More zap, you know?"

No, Brick didn't know. His power didn't work that way. But he nodded anyway.

"I can punch harder," Butch said, savage grin spreading across his face in the moonlight. He threw a lazy punch at empty air, barely any force compared to his usual hits. Even still, Brick found himself blinking as the resulting shockwave exploded loud enough to make Tchaikovsky proud, the wake rippling around them with force like a small windstorm. 

Boomer yelped, scrambling to stay "on" his vapor bed as it scattered, Butch still grinning like a maniac. “Bet I could bang-zoom the Immortal’s head straight to the moon, heh."

Not again. If he could get a migraine, Brick knew for a fact that one would be showing up almost everytime Butch started talking out loud on people they weren't supposed to fight. "What’d I tell you about making jokes about killing the fucking Immortal?”

"Who's joking?" Butch’s eyes flashed back at him. “I just wanna see how true his name is.”

Before Brick could say anything back, a quick triple-beep cut through the quiet, and a single hand snapped up to his ear before the first beep faded. Pavlov's red-headed lab rat. "Trinity."

"Boys...” Cecil's voice was a low gravelly drawl, stripped of any of the media-friendly warmth he'd been using all week. This was the real Cecil, the one who sent children to war and didn't lose sleep over it. “Got a situation developing. Rocky Mountains, about eighty miles west of your position."

Brick was already pulling up the map from his new comm as it unfolded out into a pair of red lenses with HUD already active, red eyes scanning topography. "Situation report, sir?"

"Reports of a powerful, unidentified creature attacking a corporate retreat at a ski lodge." Cecil's voice stayed flat, clinical. "We've got panicked 911 calls, but the line went dead two minutes ago. Survivors are babbling about a monster. Big, fast, and leaving a trail of bodies."

Finally.

"On our way."

The line went dead with a soft click.

Boomer zipped up into the air, cloud-bed entirely forgotten as blue light flared around him with electrical power. Butch was all teeth and predatory glee, toxic green aura already buzzing bright enough to guide ships to shore. There was nothing for Brick to do here, he realized with a slow smile spreading across his face, no reason to restrain himself or his brothers from being themselves.

No cameras. No questions. No problem.

"So, we’re gonna float here smilin’ at each other like idiots?" Butch growled, cracking his knuckles loud enough the sound echoed off the mountains. "Or are we gonna play with our brand-new toy?"

Boomer’s eyes brightened with a cobalt blue glow as Brick nodded slow.

“Let’s play, boys.”