Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

“I think my superhero alter ego should be a guy,” Sunny said, sitting on the couch with her legs folded underneath her.

“You- really?” Bdubs was sitting on the floor in front of the couch, looking at the paper where he was sketching outfits for the two of them, but he looked up to reply to Sunny. “What makes you say that?”

“For anonymity, you know?” she replied. “If the new superheroes on the block are a guy and a girl, everyone’s gonna be looking for a guy and a girl, and someone might realise it’s us. But if it’s two guys, we’ll never be suspected.”

Bdubs let out a surprised laugh, but nodded. “Okay. You know what, that’s actually pretty smart. Sure.” He grabbed another paper, this one with two lists of bullet points, and added another point to one: “`Sunny: superhero is a man.’ Wonderful. Uh, do we have to change your outfit as well then?”

“Let me see,” Sunny replied, leaning over Bdubs’ shoulder to look at the designs.
“No, I think that’s still good.” The design of the outfit had some of her hair poking out, but that wouldn’t be a problem; her hair was quite short already. She liked it that way, it was just more convenient. And the outfit didn’t show much skin; for anonymity, and to prevent from accidentally touching something she shouldn’t while using her power. If she played her cards right, maybe used a voice modulator, no one would suspect that the hero might be a woman.

“Good.” Bdubs said. “Alright, next point: names. Any ideas?”

“Hmm…” Sunny thought. “Something like Ecto? If I’m going to be phasing through things, like a ghost…”

“Ecto…” Bdubs was quiet for a few seconds, then snapped his fingers. “I’ve got it! Echo! Hear me out. I’ll be Angel, because I have the voice of an angel, and you’ll be that voice’s echo. I’ll use my singing, and then when they least expect it, you’ll show up and give them a beating. Angel and Echo.”

“Right, I see,” Sunny said, smiling and leaning back. “I’ll be secondary to you, just the way you want it.”

“No- I- no, of course not!” Bdubs laughed, and moved onto the couch, wrapping his arms around Sunny. “I’m sorry. Come on, Sunshine, you know that’s not what I meant.”

“Oh, I don’t know, Bdubs, I think the jury’s still out on that one…” Sunny laughed, then returned Bdubs’ embrace, putting her head on top of his. “I’m just kidding. Of course you didn’t mean it. You’d never say mean things about me, would you?” she asked, sarcasm lacing her voice.

“I never say mean things,” Bdubs agreed, and then they just sat for a moment, enjoying each other’s touch. Until Bdubs spoke up: “Just two superhero dudes hanging out.”

Sunny burst out laughing, and pushed Bdubs off of herself. “Come on, dude, you ruined the moment!” she said.

Bdubs laughed too. “I have to get some practice in, you know? If y- if Echo’s going to be a guy, I have to really get that in my head.”

“Just Echo, not me. I mean, if you start treating me like a guy in person as well, that defeats the whole point!”

“Of course, of course.” Bdubs sighed contentedly, the laughter finally wearing off. “You and me, Echo and Angel. We’re gonna make a great team.”

Chapter Text

Echo sat on the roof of an apartment building, watching the sun rise over the city- over his city. His and Angel’s debut as superheroes a year ago had been a resounding success, and their corner of the city had never been safer. When something did happen, the two of them jumped to the chase, smoothly executing the tactic Bdubs had laid out for them back then: he would take their attention, distracting and potentially soothing them with his voice, and Echo would phase in from behind and knock them out.
It was still a bit of a weird strategy to Echo. Bdubs insisted that his singing had an effect, that it was an essential part of the plan, but it barely seemed to slow their enemies down after the initial confusion. Whenever he sang to Echo, he couldn’t feel any effect either, but Bdubs always said he was simply holding back. Still, it seemed a little fishy to Echo.

I keep calling him Bdubs even when thinking about his hero persona, he thought to himself. I really shouldn’t do that. Not when I keep calling myself Echo instead of-

Well, that was the other weird thing. He- she- Sunny never called herself Sunny anymore. When alone, she wore Echo’s outfit whenever possible. When with other people, every time she noticed somebody looking at her, she just wanted to disappear, to phase out and maybe come back looking different. Every day, Sunny’s first thought was what he was going to do as Echo, rather than what she was going to do as Sunny.

The plan that Sunny had made a year ago was clear. To be a man as a superhero, and a woman in everyday life, to draw suspicion away from herself.

He’s afraid it might have backfired spectacularly.

Well, I’m gonna need a new name again, he thought. Obviously he couldn’t start calling himself Echo to his friends and family as well. He thought back to the day when they were brainstorming superhero names. ‘Ecto’ was the name that popped into his head back then, was there anything he could do with that?
It was very similar to Echo, but maybe he removing the `k’-sound would help. Etto, Eto…

Etho?

“Etho,” he said to himself, slowly. It had a nice ring to it. He tried again: “Hello everybody, my name is Etho…”

A smile crept onto his face. It was a very good name.

He phased out, becoming completely invisible and intangible to the outside world, then began descending through the walls the building. He kept his eyes closed as he did so, careful not to look inside the other residents’ apartments. After a minute, he’d ended up back in his own apartment; he opened his eyes, and phased back in, feet thumping the ground as if he’d jumped.

After taking a quick shower, Etho got dressed in his usual getup; sweatpants, a t-shirt, and a comfy jacket. He’d always valued comfort over fashion, a preference which had gotten stronger over the years; in hindsight, that was probably because he’d been looking at the wrong fashion.

I should probably go shopping for new clothes soon, huh? he thought to himself. He wasn’t quite sure what to do, to be honest. Should he tell Bdubs about his decision immediately? This seemed like the kind of thing you had to think about for longer than one morning before going around telling people. Not to mention his relationship with Bdubs… probably wouldn’t be the same. He hadn’t fallen in love with a guy, after all. But then, would acting like nothing’s changed be any better? Maybe-

Suddenly, he heard a pounding at his door. He jerked around in surprise to look at it; he rarely got visitors, and that didn’t exactly sound like a friendly knock. Had he pissed off his neighbours somehow?
Now he heard a rattle; someone was messing with his lock. That worried him; he put Echo’s gloves back on, just in case there’d be a fight, then opened the door.

Bdubs stood on the other side of it, his copy of the apartment key in his hand. He jolted in surprise when the door opened. “You are awake!” he said.

“Yeah, I’m awake. What the hell are you doing, man? Did you…” he trailed off, taking a good look at Bdubs now. He seemed to be out of breath, his eyes were bloodshot, and he was shaking. “Wait, are you okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. Never better. Can I come in?”

Etho stepped aside, letting Bdubs enter. “Are you being chased? Do we need to fight somebody?”

“No, no, it’s fine. I’m not being chased. Not anymore. Not yet, I mean.” Bdubs walked over to the couch, and collapsed onto it. Despite his prior statement, he was clearly not feeling well.

What? “Okay…” Etho felt a stab of nerves in his chest. He sat down next to Bdubs. “You know, it’s actually pretty good that you came over. We need to talk.”

“Yeah. We do,” Bdubs said.

Etho instantly regretted that statement. The thing he was going to say suddenly didn’t seem nearly as important as whatever Bdubs was dealing with. “…Uh, should we maybe go visit the doctor’s? You-”

“No!” Bdubs interrupted Etho, grabbing his wrist. “We’re not going outside today, alright?”

Etho removed the hand from his wrist, and took a deep breath. Bdubs was making him nervous. Usually he was the paranoid one, and Bdubs was the one that gave him confidence; how the hell was he supposed to deal with this? “That statement doesn’t exactly make me more confident in your good health, Bdubs.”

“Look, Etho, I need you to tr-”

They both froze. What on earth? “How did you-”

Bdubs snorted. “Uh oh,” he said. “I’ve just messed up, haven’t I?”

“You…” Etho was flabbergasted. “Well, you did something, that’s for sure! How- I’m gonna need some explanations here.”

Bdubs closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. “Right. Explanations. It’s probably about time, huh?”
“So, you know how I always say that my superpower is singing?”

“Yeah?”

“That’s nonsense. It has nothing to do with singing, that’s just a distraction. Really, it’s… I get nightmares.”

“Nightmares?” Etho said. “Okay.” That didn’t explain how he knew his name.

“I get nightmares that tell me exactly how I’m going to die that day.”
“`nightmare’ isn’t the right word, really,” he continued. “Honestly, they might not even be dreams. Nothing unnatural happens in them, it’s just regular life. And then something- or someone- comes along and kills me. Or, in this case, kills us.”

“Oh,” Etho said softly. He grabbed Bdubs’ hand. “Why haven’t you told me about this earlier?”

“You would’ve laughed at me.” Bdubs looked at the wall as he spoke. He was still shaking. “A guy gets a bad dream every now and again, and thinks it’s a superpower?”

Etho shook his head. “I would’ve believed you.”

Bdubs turned to look at him. “Would you really?”

He didn’t respond immediately. Truth be told, he would probably be skeptical of this story, had Bdubs not started it by saying Etho’s name before he could reasonably know it. But Etho was skeptical of everything. If he decided he couldn’t even believe Bdubs, what would he do then?
“I would have trusted your judgement,” he eventually said.

Bdubs didn’t respond immediately. He didn’t seem convinced, but eventually he spoke up: “Alright. Thanks, S- Etho.”

Suddenly, Etho felt another spike of anxiety in his chest. Right. Guess there was no postponing that conversation now. Bdubs chuckled weakly, apparently not seeing the worry on Etho’s face. “Boy. This was supposed to be your day, and I’ve really gone and made it all about me, huh?”

“I mean, we can keep talking about you if you want. I know you like to do that,” Etho said. “So, nighmares, huh? Can you tell me how exactly-”

“No.” Bdubs cut him off. “Listen, I… I really don’t want to talk about it. Not while it’s still… fresh.”

“Oh,” Etho replied quietly. He berated himself internally. Of course Bdubs wouldn’t want to go into details about their deaths. “Looks like we’re at a stalemate then,” he said. Because, truth be told, he didn’t want to talk about himself either right now. Actually, he kind of wanted to phase out and run off into the distance somewhere. Dream-Etho had made a mistake telling Bdubs, he must have. There was no way-

“Etho, I can see your mind freaking out just by looking at you,” Bdubs said, looking Etho in the eyes and smiling gently. “Come on. You really think I’m gonna stop loving you ‘cause you’re a guy?”

Etho let out a strained half-laugh. “I mean…”

“No!” Bdubs grabbed Etho’s hand with both of his, and leaned in closer to him. “I didn’t fall in love with you just because you were a girl. I fell in love with you because you were thoughtful, and smart, and competent, and had nice hair, and were you. And if a guy has all that, if a guy is you, I’ll love him just the same. C’mere.”

Bdubs wrapped his arms around Etho, who’s shoulders dropped as he reciprocated. He hadn’t even noticed he’d been tensing them. Etho leaned forwards as well, putting his face on Bdubs’ shoulder. Bdubs’ mouth was right next to his ear, so he heard him whisper: “And this isn’t the nightmare-brain talking. I said this exact thing the first time.”

Etho opened his mouth to respond, but no sound came out. He was shaking- or maybe that was still Bdubs. Maybe they were both shaking, and their relative moods would cancel each other out if they just held each other tightly enough.

Then, after a minute or so, Etho’s stomach rumbled. He lifted his face up again and slowly, reluctantly, let go of Bdubs. He suddenly felt a tear running down his face.

Etho chuckled as he reached out and wiped the tear off of his face. “You haven’t eaten breakfast either, huh? We should probably get on that.”

Etho giggled quietly. He was still a bit shaky, but feeling infinitely better than before the hug. “Wait, you left the house before eating breakfast? Wow, you must really be messed up today.”

Bdubs grinned, his typical wide grin which fit his bloodshot eyes remarkably well, in a weird way. “Yeah. That proves it, huh?” he said, and then got up to walk to the kitchen.

Etho followed him, and grabbed two bowls to put cereal in. As the two of them were preparing their breakfast, Bdubs spoke up again: “You know, there’s something else I feel like I should say, about this.”

Etho froze, holding a spoon in mid-air. “And what’s that?”

“I saw this coming a freaking mile away.”

Etho laughed, dropping his spoon and turning to look at Bdubs. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah!” Bdubs said, laughing as well. “I mean, come on. The love of your life, who has a boy haircut and only ever wears hoodies says ‘hey, I want to be a boy, but only as a superhero!’ and- you know, I wasn’t born yesterday!”

Etho continued laughing. “I guess the signs were there, huh? Although you figured it out before I did if that’s true.” He chuckled. “Maybe you saw it in a dream, just like…”

He didn’t finish the sentence, and neither did Bdubs. Etho sighed. He had to say something, or this would eat at him. “Look, I know you didn’t want to talk about it but… if somebody if this city was going to kill us, I want to know as much about them as I can.”

Bdubs looked at the ground, and didn’t respond immediately. “I just- can we talk about it later? When my brain isn’t all messed up. Right now I just wanna… watch a movie, or something.”

“I don’t know if I can-”

“We started it,” Bdubs interrupted him. “We started the fight. That’s the important part. He’s not gonna come to us if we just… happen to stay inside today.”

Etho nodded. “Alright.” He tried to banish the worry from his mind. Taking a rain day would probably be good for their health regardless, honestly. “So what movie were you thinking?”

Bdubs shrugged.

“The A-Team?” Etho suggested.

“Oh, god. Just because you’re a dude doesn’t mean your taste in movies has to get worse, Etho.”

Etho snorted. He finished making his cereal, then moved back to the couch with Bdubs.

As Bdubs was flipping through channels on the TV, Etho stretched his arms, then laid one of them around Bdubs’ shoulder. “You know what, Bdubs?” he said. “We really are just two dudes hanging out now.”

“We are!” Bdubs responded, leaning his head back into Etho’s arm. “Two dudes. Etho and Bdubs. We can take on the world, you know.”

Except for what you saw in your dream… Etho shook his head. They were in mortal peril as superheroes all the time. They could take one day off from worrying about that side of their lives. For now, Etho was content to enjoy himself--  really enjoy himself, as he’d never been able to in his life—and enjoy Bdubs’ company.