Chapter Text
Yang Cheng has accepted that it's his destiny to be alone, everyone who has ever been close to him has ended up disappointed or dead, or both. The only one who seems to resist being by his side is uncle Rock, Yang Cheng sometimes thinks he might be immortal, he must be, because Yang Cheng does not doubt that there are people in the commission that want Rock gone for good, still, if he ever needed to he can protect him. So it is just him and uncle Rock…and maybe someone else recently.
The feeling Yang Cheng got when passing Nice for the first time in the hero tower cannot be described, the dark hallways and strong shadows made the perfect confusing scenario, and his sleep deprived and guilt-ridden mind made a number on him.
He thought it was Shang Chao.
A chill ran down his spine and his heart rate was accelerated by something that was not electricity for the first time in months, he stopped dead in his tracks and couldn't turn around for what must have been a whole minute. His reaction was obvious, he realized, when ‘Shang Chao’ turned back and asked if he was okay, when he heard that voice every bit of hope mixed with fear and regret vanished to give way to embarrassment. Of course it wasn’t Shang Chao, he was dead, he had been dead for a while. Yang Cheng didn’t answer, so Nice got closer to him.
“Is everything alright?” He asked with what he assumed was supposed to be a polite smile.
He nodded as an answer and kept walking, still reeling from the interaction, just now for a different reason. He resembled Shang Chao, even up close, but it felt wrong somehow, his eyes weren’t lively enough, and his smile was less kind and more mocking. Nice didn’t stop him or try to talk to him again. Shang Chao would have tried.
Yang Cheng knew about Nice, of course he knew, top 15 hero, image of perfection as envisioned by Treeman. Yang Cheng never gave him much thought really, he doubted he would ever break into the top 10, and if he did… well he was just a pretty boy who could sing and dance, nothing to be afraid of. In combat. He hoped he would stay in the top 15, just so he never had to bump into him again.
Life went on as normal and Nice’s presence was something that always seemed parallel to his own, but he suddenly found himself thinking a lot about him. Nice was a fitting name certainly, he was chivalrous, a good hero and had even rescued a pretty blonde recently, but that was all he was, Nice. He also realized, maybe a bit too late, that it was Shang Chao’s dad who ran Treeman now, maybe that’s why they were so similar. If that was the case, he felt for the guy, as he was just the second best Mr. Shang could have.
The way Nice smiled was polished and practiced and perfect, but if Yang Cheng looked closely it was also strained, Yang Cheng could not relate to the struggle, the one good thing the helmet had going on is that he could make whatever facial expression he wanted and people would never know, it was freeing, in a way, but it wasn't great that he couldn’t take it off in front of other people, maybe he could relate in that regard.
He didn’t tell Rock about the encounter, nor about the connections he made, nor about the time he spent thinking about Nice, still, he felt like he somehow already knew, Yang Cheng decided not to think about it for too long.
The next time he met Nice it was in the hero tower again, except Nice seemed more irritated than anything, it was in the elevator, and Nice was covered in mud from head to toe reassuring someone on the phone, the call didn’t last much longer after he got in and when he hung up his smile got somehow more forced, neither said a word, but Nice was picking at his clothes as if that would get them clean somehow, and with the helmet on he could stare as much as he wanted and not get noticed as long as he didn’t turn his head.
“Do you like being a hero?” Nice asked, and it took Yang Cheng a second too long to realize he was being addressed.
He didn’t know what to answer, did he like it? Maybe, when Xia Qing and Shang Chao and little Pomelo were there with him, when he caught bad guys and stopped them from hurting people, when he was just the new E-soul and his hopes and dreams hadn’t done a full 180, maybe he liked it when people saw him without disgust at his non existent trust value. He wasn’t sure he liked it anymore, he mostly did it to become X, maybe then he could solve his problems, maybe then he would like it again.
“I don’t hate it” He settled on, Nice didn’t need or want to know what he really thought.
“I thought it would be different” Maybe Nice was just looking for an enabler to start talking, “more rewarding, I mean”. Yang Cheng understood what he meant, Nice didn’t say anything else.
The air turned awkward then, then again it could have been Yang Cheng’s perception only, but he didn’t have anything else to say on the topic that didn’t sound shallow or dismissive, so he decided to ask about something else.
“Was that your girlfriend on the phone?” He regretted it instantly, Nice stopped trying to get the dirt off his clothes and his smile turned manic. He didn’t answer for a few seconds.
“Not really…” He looked down and resumed his fight with the dirt on his clothes.
“Right” He decided not to ask anything else.
The rest of the ride was silent, and Yang Cheng felt like he was back in college trying to start a conversation with Xia Qing, only worse, because he felt like what he said was the last thing Nice wanted to hear. The elevator opened, Nice bolted to his floor, probably to clean himself finally, and Yang Cheng could breathe again. It was the worst interaction with a person he’d had in years, and the familiar sensation of regret and embarrassment came back to haunt him. He got into his floor and didn’t move from his bed for a couple hours. That interaction, contrary to what he expected, only served to make him think more of Nice. Yang Cheng really did not want him in the top 10.
The encounter with Wreck was not planned nor staged, it just happened, Yang Cheng was in the centric area after finishing an assignment and then the floor started moving around and Wreck announced his presence. Nice would probably appear soon, as he always did whenever Wreck was around, after all, the nemesis relationship between them was one of the most well known among civilians and heroes, Wreck didn’t antagonize anyone else, and Nice seemed to have a good time fighting against him.
He informed Rock of the incident and was told to leave it to Nice, and in Yang Cheng’s defense, he was going to leave it alone, that was until the altered floor started swallowing people, and impulsively he went to save them, he was still a hero after all. He hadn’t hung up on Rock, and with the phone inside his pocket he couldn’t exactly hear what he was saying, Yang Cheng could get a pretty good idea though, leave it alone, is what Rock always said, but he had not become a hero by ignoring those in need, so he still went and saved them.
When he looked up at Wreck the villain just looked confused, even through the helmet his posture was that of a man who didn’t know what to do with the situation at hand, and Yang Cheng made a mental note to pay more attention to his own body language. He then charged at Wreck to stop him against his better judgement, heroes fight each other´s nemesis all the time anyways, he didn’t need to justify himself. He managed to get close enough to hit him, but instead of dodging or fighting back Wreck just covered himself with his arms, he’s scared, Yang Cheng thought, but still landed the hit, Wreck stumbled backwards and Yang Cheng was going to take the opening until Nice appeared right next to him with a smile just as perfect and polished as always, only it seemed slightly threatening now.
“Thank you E-soul, but i’ll take it from here” Nice said, and Yang Cheng had the feeling that what he really wanted to say was get out of my sight if you don’t want to be next.
Still, he was not going to antagonize Nice, so he just nodded and left, the crowd sounded dissapointed, maybe seeing two great heroes fight alongside each other was their best idea of entertainment on a friday afternoon, but Yang Cheng had already gotten himself in enough trouble to last him a week and he was not looking for more now that Nice was there to take care of everything, once he was out of public eye he took out his phone to continue the call, but Rock had already hung up, Yang Cheng could already hear the lecturing he would get later in the day.
He did get lectured, and was also told that Wreck specifically was not someone he should concern himself with, as he didn’t cause big trouble and only seemed to focus his attention on Nice. It sounded weird to Yang Cheng that a villain would have such a specific target, but still, he didn’t care enough to question it. Wreck, like Nice, was a parallel existence and didn’t affect his chances of becoming X, so he just left it alone.
He got confronted by nice though, unexpectedly so, randomly, one day in the halls of the hero tower, he was going out on an assignment and got stopped by Nice, no one else was around and he looked pissed, he still had a smile on his face, but he wasn’t even pretending that it was real this time.
“I didn’t get the chance to say this before, but don’t get close to Wreck again, he’s my neesis and I won’t let anyone else defeat him, especially not a human battery” He looked him up and down like he was trying to make a point, he didn’t sound menacing, and Yang Cheng still had an inch or two on him, but Nice still acted like he could take him in a fight easily if he tried anything again.
Yang Cheng never considered himself a confrontational person, and maybe that’s why he didn’t have the chance to answer before Nice left his sight. That whole thing just left him more confused about the whole Nice and Wreck situation, and he decided that maybe, if he wasn´t too busy, he could get some answers from his own investigation. The hard part was justifying to himself why he cared so much, maybe Nice was the closet thing to a time in his life where he was truly happy, however, if Rock asks, Nice has expressed interest in breaking into the top 10, some intel on a possible opponent was never a bad thing, right?