Rewrite of Superhero AU - MCSM AU Month
Aiden can’t help but be impressed by Jesse. Just a little bit.
At the first Endercon Building Competition he ever saw them at, the familiar green hoodie and huge build of Axel, even back then when he was about eight or nine, and the green beanie over bouncy pigtails of Olivia overshadowing a tiny girl with short brown hair, a red pin pressed into it, her extremely dark green eyes practically glowing with excitement, he thought she looked like a five-year-old.
(He couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow when she said she was eight years old, puffing her cheeks out and crossing her arms playfully at the three of them with her eyes sparkling with amusement. She seemed to think he was joking.)
She was short and very nice even when Aiden started calling her names, Lukas shooting Aiden a disapproving look and Maya simply following his lead.
Gill was a little slower on the uptake but finally also began to be rude to Jesse, calling her names like “Tiny” and “Coal” (her hair was black) and “Green-Eyed Monster”.
Jesse either didn’t understand that they were trying to mock her or simply chose to ignore it, chirping back that ‘the last one’s pretty clever!’
Which made Gill puff his chest out, grinning. He’d been the one to come up with the Green-Eyed Monster taunt.
Six years later, six years of teasing and mocking and smirks and taunting when they lost the competition- every year- when they arrived at the Building Competition, six years of Jesse simply nodding and smiling at them, slowly going from friendly nods and smiles to the occasional eye contact to glares whenever their eyes locked (Aiden told himself he didn’t care even as his chest twinged when Jesse finally stopped smiling at them in a friendly way, started treating them as rivals, as enemies, because that’s how Aiden had primed them to think, it was fine, he didn’t care that one of the few faces that showed up every year now no longer saw them as friends), Jesse was gone.
Instead, there was a short boy with chocolatey brown hair and bright green eyes, a warm grin dancing across his lips and his red suspenders pulling up a pair of slightly-too-big pants. He looked rather cheerful to be there, considering the company he was with.
Interestingly enough, the pig that had started showing up a few competitions ago was still there, even though it seemed to be Jesse’s pet.
Maybe it was Axel or Olivia’s?
They didn’t exactly seem like the type of people to keep a pet pig, though.
“I see you’ve ditched Jesse,” he snarks at Olivia and Axel. “What, she finally got too annoying for you?”
The boy gives an awkward cough, one that is oddly familiar.
When Aiden stares intently at him, scowling slightly because a new member means he has to rebuild that wall because they’re competing, a friendly competition makes it harder to compete when you’re cheering someone else on while working on your own thing, he suddenly is able to pick out tiny little mannerisms and quirks.
The way they tilt their head. The way their familiar bright green eyes shift awkwardly when they’re trying not to be rude. The way he was shifting his weight awkwardly. The way his fingers fiddled with the straps of his suspenders like her fingers had twisted the straps of her overalls.
The new boy’s next words confirmed his suspicions.
“Uh… actually, I’m Jesse.”
It takes a few minutes for the boy to stammer out a brief explanation, looking as if he’s torn between being embarrassed and glaring at Aiden because that’s how Aiden’s set up their interactions, he’s set them up to be rivals.
How Jesse recently got the ability to shapeshift, about half a year before this year’s competition and through some mishaps he learned how he can change his appearance at will, change the size and shape of his voice box and the way his vocal cords are manipulated, change his build from skinny to heavyset to a strange hourglass shape, even alter his height and weight to an extent.
How he demonstrates briefly, morphing into a perfect copy of Lukas for about half a second before back to the boy, except now the boy’s skin is a little darker and his eyes seem to be a darker green.
Instantly, Aiden couldn’t help but be jealous. The only other people he’d heard of having superpowers was the Order of the Stone, so for Jesse to have superpowers was incredible.
(Incredible, but what did they do to deserve it?)
Jesse toggles between being a boy or a girl from day-to-day life- when they’re asked, they blush profusely and mumble something about being genderfluid. Their appearance changes, their face can morph in an instant, skin tones warping every time to an impressive degree.
Once Aiden spotted Jesse- the old Jesse, the eight-year-old girl now grown up and striding through town with Reuben at her heels, a pleasant smile on her face- until she locked eyes with Aiden and her eyes darted away and she abruptly did a 90 degree turn and walked away.
At other times she was a male with a chocolatey skin tone, at others she’d have short hair, a couple times he saw a doppelgänger of someone he knew dashing through a crowd as if running away from someone.
So now he’s kicking himself for realizing that of course the Founder wouldn’t be able to spot Jesse in a crowd, even if Aiden had provided a clear explanation of every detail of how she looked the last time he saw the original Jesse, looking like a normal seventeen-year-old with a friendly smile and a shyer if somewhat dorky attitude than the original eight-year-old girl that had tried to be friends with him.
He ignores the way his lips thin at the fact that he declined her offer, he forced them to be rivals, he forced them to be enemies, he got what he was trying to do, so why did he still feel weird about it?)
If they wanted to, they could change into somebody completely different and slip away, and never be discovered.
If they wanted to, they could become anyone in the crowd, shove that person forward, and claim that they had shapeshifted, they were really Jesse.
A huge commotion rises up, and Aiden looks up to see Jesse, Lukas, and that weird bearded guy (Ivor?) being dragged to the front of the crowd by several guards. Jesse’s a girl this time, with long black hair, bright green eyes, and a golden pin pinning back her waist-length thick hair.
Interestingly enough, if he glances from the Founder to Jesse, the two of them look strikingly similar.
Had she done it on purpose?
She gives a sheepish little smile and a wave when she realizes the Founder is staring coldly down at her. “Um… hi. I’m Jesse.”
