transmasc!mark grayson x bff!reader headcanons
wc :: 1,037 ( 5550 char . )
rating :: sfw
a/n :: IM SO BACK!!!!!!!! cant promise consistency but I've got like.. some other stuff I'm working on that I may or may not post we'll see. also hhmmm I am not trans so this MAY be inaccurate.. so.. y'know.. excuse me if anything is written poorly I tried my best ahem............. enjoy *geyulp*
you were the first person mark came out to. of course you were, you had been his best friend since middle school. through terrible teachers, lunch detentions, as well as an embarrassing era of dark, edgy clothes and puppy love heartbreaks, you were there for it all.
and so of course you were accepting when he told you he was trans. you weren't shocked anyway, you could always kind of tell that there was something under the surface that mark had never confided about with you. could tell that something was just off when he would hesitate on going into stores like victoria's secret or bath and body works. you'd always catch him stealing glances at himself in mirrors at malls, tugging his shirt forward to hide his figure, or concealing his long hair in the hood of a hoodie that was a size too big on him. or even when he would insist on shopping in the boys section at stores because apparently "they just have better clothes."
his behavior was enough to make you raise an eyebrow, but you never questioned it. just thought he was a tomboy for the longest time, which in hindsight was definitely a stupid assumption. so when he told you, all the puzzle pieces clicked into place and it was like putting on glasses for the first time and seeing things clearly for once. duh he was trans, how did you not notice before? all those birthday parties and formal events where debbie tried to make him wear a nice dress and mark would always fight tooth and nail against her. the dress was always ruined within an hour, muddied from playing rough outside and debbie would cave in and let him wear a tshirt and jeans with a sigh and a roll of her eyes.
another instance crosses your mind, the time he got into a bad arguement with nolan. a screaming match that shook the house. you weren't there when it happened, but you think you remember him giving you a short explanation that the fight was related to his powers and the fact he didn't have them yet. nevertheless, whatever that fight was about resulted in mark storming up to his room and locking the door behind him. he came to school the next day with tear streaked cheeks and choppy hair that looked like it had lost a nasty fight with a pair of kitchen scissors.
now that you're looking back on it, mark had to have lied to you about the cause of that fight.
when mark first started dressing in exclusively boys clothes, his style was that of a ten year old who had his outfits handpicked by his mother every day. marks wardrobe was practically overflowing with graphic tees of his favorite action figures, corny phrases, and at least three different seance dog shirts. thank god for you, though, because you teased him out of that phase real quick. helped him clear out his closet the summer before freshman year with grins and a stifled snicker when you found the shirt he had that read "I paused my game to be here." really? how old is he, five? safe to say you took him shopping that day and bought him a whole collection of clothes that actually fit his age range and most of his new style is accredited to you now.
when you bought him his first binder for his sixteenth birthday that year, he was ecstatic. practically bouncing off the walls, you thought he was going to somehow activate his powers with the sheer amount of excitement that was radiating off of him that day. he could officially say goodbye to the questioning glances he got from wearing hoodies in the ninety degree summers of chicago and feel at least a bit more comfortable wearing clothes that were a little more fitted on him.
he DID go a little bit overboard with wearing it, though. he'd keep the constricting thing on him for days on end, wearing it out to the point of breathing complications. and then he would still wear it because "i'm a viltrumite, who cares? i'll be fine." his words exactly. yeah, it got to the point where he would only ever take it off if he absolutely had to. he'd dodge cleaning it for weeks simply because he didn't want to risk debbie finding it in the wash while she was folding his clothes. thankfully, this was a phase he got over within a month or so and he finally started taking care of it when he realized that he actually had to breathe to live, and that just being a viltrumite wasn't going to get him out of all the back pain and breath shortness that came with wearing his binder. you still do have to remind him to take it off occasionally, but you don't mind since it makes you glad to know he's appreciative of the gift.
haircuts are another story entirely. debbie usually took him to get his hair done at a barber shop owned by a friend of a friend, and usually it was just small trims at the bottom to clear out any split ends. but that wasn't going to fly with mark, not after he started to transition; but he couldn't just go up to his mom and say "hey, can I cut my hair super short? like, boy short?" because what would she think? there's no way debbie would allow that. but maybe that fight with his dad was a good thing after all, because ever since he chopped all his hair off out of spite, he started to rely on you to keep it in shape. and lets not lie to ourselves here, you certainly aren't the best barber in the world. the first few times you went at marks hair with scissors was... well, let's just say it could've been better. it was choppy, messy, with strands of hair that were visibly longer than others. and after some trial and error, as well as clogging the drain of your bathroom sink with hair for the umpteenth time, you eventually got the hang of it.
