Swooped | ✓

Chapter 24: To Rule the Roost

That night, Sasha's live stream of my heroic cat-saving feats was posted online and shared and shared and shared. There were plenty of sceptics who said that the post was a hoax, and that remained the consensus for a few days until more videos began popping up from other people, as well as story-time posts from people I had helped. 

It had only taken a week after that for people to start realising that there really was a guy in a skin-tight black suit (which people kept assuming was spandex which made Gia fume with rage) flying around with actual wings and helping people.

The news reported on me, and the Parliament had gathered on my couch to watch the news, somewhat shocked that I was actually appearing there. In their eyes, I was still their mildly idiotic pothead friend, but on the screen I was being hailed as things far more complimentary than that. Community angel, real superhero, saviour, and Messenger of God had been some of the headlines that had become trending hashtags, alongside Black Dove and Birdboy (which made me yell out 'fake news' at the very inaccurate use of 'boy').

It wasn't just the media that were milking the hell out of me. Scientists immediately gathered and had lengthy discussions trying to figure out what the fuck I was, and the animal activists had apparently started using my image as some kind of propaganda tool, saying that I was the product of horrific animal experiments. At least, that was one group of animal activists. An opposing group  had popped up in retaliation to their beliefs, and said that I was actually some kind of olive branch between the humans and animals, literally a sign that we can coexist peacefully.

Two bunches of nutjobs, was what I thought about those guys. I mean, I'm all for saving the animals, but these guys had basically made some new religion around me, and I didn't exactly want to become a Gen Z Jesus Christ. Superhero, yes. Figurehead of a new religious cult? No thank you.

For the most part, people were wild about me. I mean, people started making merchandise with my image plastered all over them. Fan art had been made, songs had been written, and I was very smug when numerous fan pages cropped up. My favourite was the 'Cum for Black Dove' fan page, which consisted of nothing more than thirst posts for me. Milo had been livid for a day and almost used his hacking skills to obliterate the page from the endless abyss of the internet, but I had begged him not to.

With my mouth. And I didn't mean using it to talk.

I had become positively famous and it was great because they didn't know who I really was. When I went out as Black Dove, people would recognise me and it filled me with an unexplainable rush when I realised that people knew me. Saw me. Thought about me. Even cared about me. And that was amazing, but I still loved being able to go out as just Culver Fleet and not get hounded. 

I did have haters, though, as any semi-famous person would have. There were quite a few people who thought I was a freak, but to be honest, those people were racists in general so I didn't give two fucks about their opinions. Some people mocked me because I was being called a superhero despite 'only doing things any regular good samaritan would do', and thought I was lame. Again, these people were probably 11-year-old trolls who threw temper tantrums when their mums took away their wifi privileges. Also, can't forget the mildly homicidal hunting society, who made it clear that I would be great prey instead of the usual fowls they shot for fun.

But these people were just dicks, and despite loving dick I only liked very specific dick, so I pushed those people out of my mind. I often found Milo sitting up in bed with the glow of his laptop on his face, obliterating people through his keyboard with a vengeance. He would stop when I would sleepily smile at him and shuffle closer, grumbling about how he wasn't doing his job as my boyfriend by not snuggling me.