Chapter 12: Record - Upload - Reviews
The air in Roxy’s apartment hung thick, not just with the usual scent of old paper and dust motes dancing in the weak afternoon light filtering through cluttered bookshelves, but with a palpable, crackling tension. The faint, warm hum of her vintage record player provided a low thrum beneath the silence. Billy adjusted the tripod, the Spider-Man suit’s spandex pulling uncomfortably tight across his shoulders. The vibrant red and blue felt garish against Roxy’s eclectic, moody art – a framed print of a stormy sea beside a kitschy neon sign reading ‘Chaos Theory’.
Roxy emerged from her tiny bathroom, fully transformed. The blue latex Supergirl corset gleamed under the strategically placed work lamp Billy had rigged, pushing her breasts into impossible cleavage. The tiny briefs hugged her hips, the red belt a sharp slash. Her blonde hair was swept into a high, severe ponytail. She struck a pose, hand on hip, chin tilted. "Ready to save the day, Spidey?" Her voice was light, mocking, but her eyes held a familiar, unnerving intensity.
Billy swallowed, the mask suddenly stifling. "Uh, yeah. Sure. Just… remember the script? The red kryptonite?"
Roxy waved a dismissive hand, the latex squeaking faintly. "Pfft. Script. Improv is hotter. Just know…" She stepped closer, invading his personal space. The vinyl scent of her costume mixed with her usual clean sweat smell. Her finger tapped the spider emblem on his chest. "...this stuff makes me really frisky." She grinned, sharp and predatory. "Like, lose-control frisky. Hope your web-shooters work."
Billy hit record. The tiny red light on the camera blinked. Action.
It started awkwardly. Billy stumbled over his lines, delivering Spidey’s quippy banter with the enthusiasm of a man reading a tax form. "So, uh, Supergirl! Heard there was some, uh, trouble downtown? Something about… red rocks?" He gestured vaguely.
Roxy rolled her eyes, a gesture amplified by the camera’s proximity. "Trouble?" she purred, stalking towards him with deliberate slowness. Her hips swayed, the latex catching the light. "Oh, there’s trouble alright. Found this…" She produced a jagged, painted-red piece of foam from behind a stack of books. "...just lying around. Felt… strange." She pressed the fake kryptonite fragment against her corset, just below the 'S'. A theatrical gasp escaped her lips. "Oh! It's… it's hot!" Her hand flew to her forehead. "So… dizzy…"
Billy moved forward, Spider-Man reflexes kicking in half-heartedly. "Whoa there, Supergirl! Easy!" He caught her arm. The latex was cool, slick beneath his gloved fingers.
Roxy slumped against him, her head lolling onto his shoulder. Her eyes, when she looked up at him through her lashes, were wide, pupils dilated. Not acting. "Billy… I mean… Peter?" Her voice was a breathy whisper, thick with manufactured arousal. "It’s… overwhelming. Like… fire in my veins." Her hand slid down his chest, over the spandex, lower. "Can you… feel it too?"
The goofiness evaporated. The red foam rock clattered forgotten to the floor. Billy’s breath hitched. The script dissolved. This wasn't Supergirl and Spider-Man anymore. This was Roxy, radiating heat and danger, pulling him into her orbit. Her fingers traced the defined lines of his suit over his abdomen, dipping towards the waistband. "This stupid rock," she murmured, her lips brushing the edge of his mask near his jawline. "Makes me want things… bad things." Her other hand gripped his shoulder, pulling him closer. "Things only a bad Spider can give me."
Seduction wasn't the right word. It was an ambush. A claiming. Roxy kissed him hard through the mask fabric, her tongue tracing the outline of his lips. She pushed him back onto the worn velvet couch, climbing onto his lap, straddling him. The blue latex pressed against the red and blue spandex, a slick, vibrant friction. Her hands were everywhere – pulling at his mask, gripping his hair, tracing the muscles of his back through the thin material. Her breath came in hot, ragged gasps against his neck. "Tell me you feel it," she demanded, grinding against him. "Tell me it burns."
Billy did feel it. Not the fake kryptonite, but the raw, magnetic pull of her, the dangerous thrill that obliterated Deborah’s threats and Chloe’s screams. He groaned, his hands finding her hips, pulling her tighter against the hard evidence of his arousal straining against the spandex. "Yeah," he rasped, the word muffled, strained. "Burns."
What followed was a frantic blur of latex and spandex, sweat-slicked skin revealed in patches as costumes were pushed aside, not removed. The camera captured it all: the desperate grappling, Roxy’s sharp cries that sounded suspiciously real, Billy’s muffled groans, the rhythmic creak of the old couch springs. It was performative fury mixed with undeniable, desperate need. Climax hit them both hard and fast, a shuddering release that left them collapsed together on the couch, tangled in primary-colored limbs, breathing heavily, sweat cooling on their skin.
Silence descended, thick and heavy, broken only by their ragged breathing and the persistent hum of the record player. Roxy lay half on top of Billy, her head resting on his chest, the blue latex corset digging into his skin. Billy stared up at the ceiling, past a dangling dreamcatcher, feeling hollowed out. The Spider-Man mask was pushed up, exposing his mouth and chin, damp with sweat.
Slowly, carefully, Billy disentangled himself. Roxy made a small noise of protest but didn't move, her eyes closed. He stood, the spandex clinging uncomfortably. He walked to the camera on its tripod, the red light still blinking. He stopped the recording. The silence felt louder now.
Without a word, he ejected the memory cards. Roxy watched him through slitted eyes, her expression unreadable. He gathered his laptop bag from near the door, avoiding her gaze. He pulled on his discarded jeans and t-shirt over the Spider-Man suit, the fabric bunching awkwardly. He slipped the memory cards into his bag.
He paused at the door, hand on the knob. He didn't look back. He opened it and stepped out into the hallway, closing it softly behind him. No goodbye.
Back in his own cluttered apartment, the smell of ammonia and stale takeout hit him like a physical blow. The mini-fridge whined. He ignored the green liquid bubbling softly in its beaker. He dumped his bag, pulled the laptop out, and plugged in the cards. He edited the footage with robotic efficiency – trimming awkward pauses, enhancing the lighting on Roxy’s latex, adding a subtle filter to heighten the sweat-slicked intensity. He uploaded it to PlastiqueFantastique with a title: "Kryptonite Fever: Supergirl Corrupted!" Tagged: #Supergirl #Spiderman #Crossover #RedKryptonite #ForbiddenDesire.
He shut the laptop. Stripped off the Spider-Man suit, leaving it in a garish heap on the floor. He crawled into his narrow bed, the sheets cold. He stared at the ceiling, the warehouse footage replaying behind his eyelids, mixing with the raw need in Roxy’s eyes on her couch. A single, hot tear escaped, tracing a path down his temple into the pillow. He didn't wipe it away.
Across town, Roxy peeled the blue latex from her skin inch by inch, the adhesive tugging painfully. The scent of vinyl and sex clung to the air. She ran a bath, water scalding hot, and sank into it, letting the heat seep into her bones. She scrubbed until her skin felt raw, but the emptiness inside remained – a cold, hollow ache where Billy’s warmth had been moments before. She dried off, pulled on an old t-shirt, and climbed into her own bed. The sheets smelled faintly of him, of sweat and spandex. She curled into a tight ball, staring at the faint light from the streetlamp filtering through her blinds, missing the weight of him beside her, missing the anchor he provided in her chaos. Sleep came slowly, fitfully.
Morning light, pale and unforgiving, spilled into both apartments. Billy woke with a start, gritty-eyed and heavy-limbed. He grabbed his phone first thing, habit overriding dread. Notifications flooded the screen. PlastiqueFantastique. He opened the app, scrolling through the comments under their latest upload.
"HOT MOVIE! 🔥🔥🔥"
"Awesome match up! Never knew I needed Spidey/Supergirl!"
"More storylines like this! The kryptonite angle was hilarious and hot!"
"Roxy is FIRE in that suit. Billy lucky bastard."
"Subscribed instantly!"
A numb relief washed over him, cold and clinical. The numbers were good. Very good. Fuel. He tossed the phone aside, the hollow feeling from last night settling deeper.
Roxy woke later, the emptiness still lodged under her ribs. She made strong coffee, the bitter aroma filling her small kitchen. Her cat, a sleek black shadow named Poe, wound around her ankles, purring. She poured coffee into a chipped mug and sat at her small table, scrolling through her phone with one hand, absently stroking Poe’s fur with the other. Same comments flooded her feed. The validation was a dull buzz, failing to warm the cold spot inside.
Then she saw it. Buried beneath the praise, a single comment with a handful of likes:
"Hot scene, visually wild! 🔥 But… something missing? The intensity was there, sure, but where was the connection? The warehouse stuff felt raw, real. This felt… performative? Like watching two really hot people go through motions. Still hot tho! Just… curious what happened?"
Roxy froze. The mug halted halfway to her lips. Poe nudged her hand, demanding more pets. She didn't move. The words echoed in the quiet apartment, louder than the record player’s hum, louder than the city outside. Connection. Performative. What happened?
She sat there, the steam from her coffee curling into the still air, Poe’s purr vibrating against her leg, staring at the screen, the comment burning into her retinas. Deep in thought. The hollow ache pulsed, suddenly sharpened by a question she hadn't known how to ask.
Roxy and Billy
Roxy set the mug down hard, coffee sloshing over the rim onto the scarred wood table. Poe flinched, darting away. The comment glared from the screen. Performative. The word echoed the hollow ache beneath her ribs, sharpening it into a blade. She scrolled back, rereading the praise – "FIRE," "HOT," "AWESOME" – but they blurred, meaningless noise against that one brutal observation.
Connection. What had happened? Not in the scripted kryptonite nonsense, but in the desperate grappling on her couch. The sweat, the friction, the release… it had felt real enough in the moment. Urgent. Necessary. But now? She remembered Billy leaving. The quiet click of the door. The flat efficiency of his editing. His silence across the city. The warehouse footage had felt different – raw, dangerous, fueled by Chloe’s genuine terror and Roxy’s own predatory glee. This… this had been mechanics. Two actors hitting marks. Even the climax felt staged against the echo of his abrupt departure.
She stood, the chair legs scraping loudly. The apartment felt claustrophobic suddenly, the clutter of books and art pressing in. She needed air. Needed… something. Pulling on ripped jeans and a faded band tee over yesterday’s exhaustion, she grabbed her keys. The thought of Billy alone in his sterile, chemical-smelling apartment, probably scrolling through the same comments with numb satisfaction, ignited a spark of fury. He’d left. He’d taken the heat they’d generated and walked out into the night, leaving her with the vinyl scent and the hollow aftermath. She slammed her own door, the vibration rattling the framed prints on the wall.
Billy stared at the beaker. The green liquid had settled, inert, a failure. Like the video. The comments were good, sure. Great, even. Traffic spiked. Subscriptions climbed. Fuel for the PlastiqueFantastique engine. But the comment Roxy was undoubtedly seeing now… it landed like a pebble in that stagnant green solution, sending invisible ripples through him. Performative. He knew. He’d felt it even as he’d groaned against her neck, even as the couch springs shrieked. He’d been going through motions choreographed by desperation and habit, not the raw, terrifying current that had surged between them in the Gotham grime. Deborah’s "ashes" warning hissed in his memory. Was this the slow burn? This hollow professionalism?
The sharp, impatient rapping at his door snapped his head up. Not Roxy’s rhythmic tap. A demanding fist. He knew before opening. The scent hit him first through the gap – vinyl, coffee, and a sharp, electric anger that cut through the ammonia and ozone. She pushed past him, her presence immediately filling the cramped space, making the stacks of journals seem even more precarious.
"Did you see it?" Roxy demanded, not looking at him, pacing the narrow path between lab bench and couch. Her movements were tight, agitated. "The comment? The one comment buried under all the ‘omg hot’ garbage?"
Billy closed the door, leaning back against it. "Yeah. I saw it."
"And?" She whirled, eyes blazing. "Nothing to say? Just ‘yeah, I saw it’? They called it performative, Billy. Like we were faking it on my couch." Her voice cracked, raw. "Were we?"
He looked away, towards the humming mini-fridge. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable. "It felt… different," he admitted, the words sticking in his throat. "After the warehouse. After… everything." He couldn't bring himself to say Chloe's name, or Deborah's furious exit. "It’s getting complicated."
"Complicated?" Roxy laughed, a sharp, humorless sound. "Life’s complicated, Batty. Since when did that stop us? The warehouse was complicated! Messy, dangerous, terrifying… and real. This?" She gestured vaguely, encompassing his apartment, the memory of the video, the distance between them. "This feels like… maintenance. Like we’re just keeping the engine running on fumes." She stepped closer, the vinyl scent intensifying. "Tell me you didn’t feel it too. That disconnect. When you left without a word."
He met her gaze then. The fury was still there, but underneath, starkly visible, was the same hollow ache he felt. The loneliness. The missing. "I felt it," he whispered.
The admission hung in the air. Roxy’s posture softened infinitesimally. The anger bled out, leaving exhaustion and that deep, shared emptiness. She reached out, not to touch him, but towards the bubbling green liquid. "So what now? We just keep making… this?" Her finger hovered near the beaker. "Pretty colors. No spark."
Before he could answer, before he could even process the despair in her question, his phone buzzed violently on the cluttered desk. Then again. And again. Not PlastiqueFantastique notifications. Insistent, rapid-fire alerts. He picked it up. Security camera app. Motion detected. Back door. His workshop space in the old garment district building.
He tapped the notification. The grainy black-and-white image loaded. The back alley door, slightly ajar. Broken lock. And inside, illuminated by the dim emergency light, a figure moved with frantic, jerky movements. Small. Slight. Blonde hair catching the weak light as she rummaged through a crate of discarded costume pieces. Chloe. She pulled out a scrap of vibrant green fabric – Poison Ivy? – holding it up, her head whipping around as if sensing the camera. Her face, even pixelated, was etched with manic determination. Not fear. Not this time. Purpose.
Billy’s blood ran cold. He turned the screen to Roxy. "We’ve got company."
Roxy leaned in, her breath catching as she recognized the frantic figure on the grainy feed. A slow, dangerous smile, devoid of warmth, spread across her face, erasing the hollow ache, replacing it with a predatory focus. Her eyes locked on Billy’s, the blue blazing with sudden, terrifying intensity. "Well, well," she murmured, the vinyl creaking softly as she straightened. "Looks like the mouse is back in the maze. And she’s not running away this time." She tilted her head, a hunter assessing prey. "Wonder what little trinket she’s hunting for?" The hum of the mini-fridge seemed to drop an octave, vibrating in tune with the sudden, sharp tension crackling between them. Outside, the city’s indifferent roar continued. Inside the workshop screen, Chloe straightened, clutching the green fabric, her pixelated gaze seeming to stare directly into the lens. A challenge thrown. Roxy’s smile widened. "Let's go ask her."
The grainy CCTV image burned in Billy’s vision: Chloe, small and frantic, clutching that scrap of green like a talisman. Roxy’s predatory smile was a physical force beside him, radiating coiled energy. "Let's go ask her." The words hung, sharp and cold, cutting through the lingering ghosts of their hollow coupling and the sting of that online comment. Performative. The word echoed like a bad taste.
Billy moved without thought, snatching his keys off the cluttered desk, sending a precariously stacked journal tumbling. Roxy was already at the door, a sleek shadow vibrating with intent. The stale lab air, thick with ozone and failure, felt suddenly insufficient. He needed... leverage. Something to cut through the predictable chaos Chloe represented. His eyes snapped to the innocuous beaker on the lab bench. The green liquid within pulsed faintly, a contained storm.
"Wait," Billy said, his voice tight. Roxy paused, one hand on the doorknob, impatience radiating off her. He strode to the bench, ignoring the humming mini-fridge’s drone. He carefully decanted a thick, viscous portion of the green liquid into two small, unmarked vials, their glass cool against his fingertips. The substance moved with an unnatural slowness, clinging to the glass.
"What's that?" Roxy asked, her gaze locked on the vials, a flicker of scientific curiosity briefly overriding her huntress focus. "Your latest disaster?"
"Potentially," Billy admitted, pocketing one vial. He held the other out to her. "Formula 7-Beta. Neuro-empathetic catalyst. Amplifies sensory input... emotional resonance. Supposedly." He met her eyes, the memory of their disconnected, frantic coupling on her couch stark between them. "Thought it might... clarify things. If she’s playing a new game, we need an edge. See the board clearly."
Roxy stared at the vial, then at Billy. A slow, dangerous grin spread across her face, wider and sharper than before. Not amusement. Anticipation. "Clarity?" she echoed, snatching the vial. The glass felt heavy, alive. "Or fireworks? Either way." She uncapped it, the faint scent of ozone and something metallic sharpening the air. "Down the hatch, Batty?"
Billy mirrored her, popping the cap off his vial. The liquid inside shimmered, swirling with trapped light. No time for ethics, for doubt. Chloe was moving. Deborah’s "ashes" warning hissed in his mind. This path was fire. Maybe they needed to burn brighter. He raised the vial in a grim toast. "To seeing the real picture." He tipped it back.
The liquid hit his tongue. Cold. Then instantly, searingly hot, like swallowing molten wire. It flooded his senses, not painful, but intense. The chemical tang in the lab exploded – ammonia sharpened to knives, ozone crackling like static in his sinuses. Roxy gasped beside him, a sharp intake of breath. He saw her pupils dilate, swallowing the light, her knuckles white around the empty vial. The vinyl scent of her clothes became overwhelming, layered with the clean salt-sweat smell of her skin beneath, each note distinct, vivid, intoxicating.
"Fuck," Roxy breathed, her voice husky, resonant. She blinked, shaking her head slightly as if clearing water from her ears. The world seemed... louder. Sharper. The whine of the mini-fridge wasn't just sound; it was a physical vibration against her ribs. She looked at Billy, really looked, and he felt it – a hyper-awareness of the tension thrumming in his jaw, the rapid pulse visible at his throat, the conflicted storm in his eyes, magnified tenfold. It wasn't telepathy. It was sensory overload tuned to him. "You feel that? Everything’s... dialed up to eleven."
Billy nodded, swallowing hard against the lingering chemical burn. The urgency to reach Chloe hadn't faded; it was now a bone-deep thrum, synchronized with the frantic rhythm of his own heart. The grainy CCTV image of her face, that manic determination, felt imprinted on his retinas. "Let’s move," he said, his voice sounding deeper, richer, every nuance amplified. He yanked open the apartment door. "Before the picture gets any clearer without us there." The city’s roar hit them like a physical wave – car horns blared with startling violence, distant sirens wailed like lost creatures, the very air hummed with hidden currents. Roxy followed, a feral grin still playing on her lips, her movements fluid and unnervingly precise. The hunt was on, and the world was suddenly, terrifyingly, alive. They plunged into the stairwell, the echo of their footsteps a deafening percussion in the sudden sensory storm. Billy’s hand tightened around the keys in his pocket. Chloe wasn't just rummaging. She was building something. They hit the street, the afternoon light glaringly bright, every shadow starkly defined. A taxi screeched past, the smell of exhaust and hot asphalt hitting Billy like a punch. Roxy flagged it down with a whistle that cut through the din. "Garment district. Fast." The driver grunted. They piled in. The cab smelled of stale smoke and synthetic pine air freshener, each scent clawing at Billy’s enhanced senses. He focused on the GPS map on his phone, the blinking dot representing the workshop’s back door camera. Chloe’s dot hadn't moved. Waiting? Trapped? Setting a trap? The green fire of the formula pulsed in his veins, making every possibility feel equally probable, equally dangerous. Roxy leaned close, her breath warm against his ear, the vinyl of her jacket creaking. "What's the plan, science guy? Knock politely? Or kick the door in and see what bites?" Her whisper was a vibration he felt in his teeth. "Depends on what we find," Billy murmured, watching the city blocks blur past. "And what it finds in us." The formula was working. He could feel the boundaries between them thinning, Roxy’s focused aggression bleeding into his own heightened awareness like ink in water. He touched the pocket where the empty vial rested. Clarity. Or combustion. The taxi swerved. Their destination loomed – the grimy alley beside the old garment building where Chloe, armed with stolen scraps and god knew what else, waited in the flickering half-light beneath a broken emergency lamp. Billy’s enhanced hearing picked up a sound from the feed still open on his phone, faint but clear through the cab’s rattling: a low, rhythmic tearing of fabric. Preparing. Building. The taxi jerked to a halt. "Here." Billy shoved bills at the driver. They exploded from the cab into the alley. The stench hit immediately – rotting garbage, damp concrete, stale urine – amplified by the formula into a suffocating miasma. Roxy gagged, then grinned, baring her teeth. "Charming." Billy pointed. Down the narrow alley, maybe fifty yards, the workshop’s reinforced back door stood slightly ajar, just like on the feed. Weak yellow light spilled onto the cracked asphalt. And there, silhouetted in the doorway, clutching a ragged length of shimmering green fabric, stood Chloe. She wasn't frantic anymore. She stood still. Watching them approach. Her eyes, reflecting the dim light, held a terrifying, focused calm. The green scrap in her hands wasn't just being held. It was being woven – impossibly fast – into a crude, thorny cuff around her wrist. She saw them, and a slow, unnerving smile touched her lips. "Took you long enough," Chloe called out, her voice echoing flatly in the alley, devoid of its usual manic edge. It was low, controlled. Dangerous. "I was just finishing my welcome gift." She held up her wrist, the thorny green cuff glinting. "Poison suits me, don't you think?" Roxy took a step forward, her own predatory smile widening in response, a silent challenge resonating in the charged air. Billy felt the green fire in his blood surge, the formula amplifying every nuance of the standoff – the calculating coldness in Chloe’s eyes, Roxy’s coiled violence, the sickly sweet scent of decay mixed with the sharp tang of industrial waste. The game had changed. The board was clear. And all three players were dangerously, irrevocably altered.