"You don't have to keep doing this," you say, dodging out of the way as a car is hurled at you remorselessly.
Protection stands in the middle of the street, various and sundry urban fixtures hovering menacingly over his head, though there's a bead of sweat glinting on his forehead. You'll have to end this quickly, then. "Yes," he states with a hard stare, "I do."
The manhole below you gives only a slight rattle of warning before it's shooting into the air with lethal speed. You dive backwards as sewage spews up to cover the street.
If you were smart, you'd leave now. It's the perfect cover, as human waste obscures you from his vision. You look down at your transporter, a gift from Freedom. You never asked for payment, of course, but more than a few supers had gifted you things anyway, as thanks for your help. This transporter had been especially helpful, getting you out of any number of tough situations, much to the chagrin of the Mayor and his lackeys, Protection in particular.
Daniela had always been the smart one.
"You really don't," you try. "This super hero thing, it's not all it's cracked up to be. You could join me, and we could actually make the world better."
The shower of waste dies abruptly and he stands panting in the middle of the street. "I will never join you." His voice, that look in his eye, is so much like Daniela, it makes your heart clench. That righteous indignation. That conviction.
You can still see it, after all these years.
Daniela had been a reporter before the Emboldening. And, though she'd gained x-ray vision and the ability to fly, she never lost that striving towards truth. She'd been captivating, drawing your eye with a sensuous smile and a nice— Well, you know. You'd been fearless, then. Nothing to lose. You'd sauntered over to her, all arrogance and muscles, dropped a ridiculous kiss on her knuckles, and asked her on a date. Her raised eyebrow and skeptical tone had startled a laugh out of you, and that'd been that. You knew she was the one from that moment, and the day she agreed to marry you was the happiest day of your life. You married her on a picture-perfect day, the birds trilling merrily as you kissed your bride. Jackson had come along not long afterwards, and, though you worried about punches and pregnancy and dangerous missions, Daniela had been an excellent mother from the first, and you'd wiped away tears as your beloved son had been placed gingerly in your arms.
Things were good, for a long time. Years passed, fighting side by side. You said you'd've been okay if Jackson hadn't ever developed powers, but the relief that flowed through your veins when your nanny cam had caught him telepathically retrieving a cookie from the top cabinet had called you a liar. You enrolled him in the Little Heroes' Academy the next day, your heart beaming with pride. You installed a white picket fence (fully equipped with standard anti-villain protections, of course) around your house, and you and Daniela had even been talking about trying for another 1.5 kids. It was perfect. Too perfect to last. Too perfect to even be real.
One night you discovered Daniela taking a secretive phone call. You trusted her, of course. But you didn't keep secrets. When you asked her about it, she bit her lip and said she didn't know yet. You trusted your wife, so you'd agreed to be patient, and offered your help.
By the time she came to you, you'd nearly forgotten about the whole thing. Months had passed. She laid out extensive evidence. Those rehabilitation centers you'd been studiously sending villains to all these years were torture chambers. You didn't want to believe, couldn't, that it was true. They were villains, after all. Lying was not beyond the pale for them. Finally, she spilled her last secret: that trip last week hadn't been to her parents, but an unofficial mission to the center. She'd witnessed the horrors first hand. Her hand shook as she recalled the cruelty she'd seen. You took it in yours and gingerly kissed her knuckles, like you had all those years ago. You promised her you'd fix this. Her frame relaxed as you shouldered her burden. You were a good husband, after all.
You explained that you'd take this to Mayor Thorogood yourself. There's no way he could know about this. He'd commissioned the hero's alliance, after all. He'd set it to rights. The look of slowly dawning horror in her eyes still haunts your dreams.
It was one of your only fights in so many years. She begged you not to. Yelled and screamed. Tried explaining that this went all the way to the top. Was a deliberate decision. You insisted, with self-righteous confidence, that someone must be hiding this from the Mayor, and so it was your responsibility to bring it to his attention, at once. The fight had left her, then, and she'd stepped aside with a very quiet, "Okay."
Standing in his office, Mayor Thorogood clapped you on the shoulder, told you you'd done the right thing, and that he'd handle it. It only confirmed your suspicions, and you put it out of your mind. For the next week, though, you caught Daniela watching you with a wary look in her eye. You couldn't understand why. You'd told her what he'd said as soon as you got home. You thought she worried too much.
And then. That night. The worst night of your life. You'd been invited to the Mayor's reelection party, wearing your favorite suit. She'd smiled and kissed you on your way out, telling you that you looked handsome, and you'd breathed a sigh of relief that things were finally returning back to normal.
The party had been unremarkable. Toasts, champaign, glitter and lights and tinkling laughter. You spent much of the night wondering how soon you could get home, if she'd like it if you gave her one of your massages. And then. Out the window. A battle raged. It wasn't uncommon, exactly, but neither was it mundane. Everyone turned to watch the spectacle out of wide picture windows. Like a movie. You saw her. Beauty and grace, streaking through the sky, handily beating the salamander with careful precision. Until she wasn't. She fell. A gasp went up. You broke through the large window, lurching towards her, but you didn't have super speed. Too big, too bulky, too clumsy. Still, you ran. Hoping that you could catch her. Hoping, when she fell with a sickening crunch, that she'd survived. Hoping that this would be just another dramatic battle story.
Her eyes were open. It was wrong, you'd thought distantly. Her eyes were supposed to be closed and then flutter open when she heard you approach. But they were open. They stayed open. Looking at you without seeing. Unresponsive to your begging, just as you'd been to hers, not so long ago. Daniela, the light of your life, the other part of your soul, the protector of the unprotected, was gone.
You held her cooling body as you sobbed, undone in your grief. The salamander was dealt with handily, but you didn't notice. Nothing else could ever be okay again. Power had come, then, in a burst of speed, and held you. Your best friend. He wasn't Daniela. But he held you and didn't try to tell you to let go of Daniela's body, let you pour out all of your anguish into the soft knit fabric of his costume. And then, what might've been hours or minutes later, quietly reminded you of Jackson. He needed his dad. You'd have to be strong for him.
Of course. Your son. You felt the air punch from your lungs. How could you have forgotten?
Anxious-looking orderlies stood nearby, a body bag on a gurney, looking to be filled. You knew she had to go in there, knew you couldn't hold her – her corpse, you forced yourself to think – forever. You had the impulse to climb inside with her, entombed in darkness, together.
But Jackson. It wouldn't be fair to him, to lose both parents in one fell swoop. You put on a brave face – it still included tears streaming down your face, but lacked body-wracking sobs, the best you could manage at the moment – and surveyed the rather large, hushed crowd surrounding you. A brush fire of anger swept through you. Undirected. Lethally hot. Cleansing. They'd all just stood there and watched?
A hand clapped on your shoulder. The Mayor. Eyes dark and sincere. Not a hair out of place. Condolences. She was a good woman, who wanted to protect the city from danger. A camera was rolling nearby, capturing every word. As Mayor, he wouldn't stop until every threat to the city was eradicated.
You nodded distantly and allowed Power to lead you into the waiting car, and home to your son.
You don't remember much, after that. You know you must've eaten. You know you must've comforted Jackson in his grief. You have a vague, fuzzy idea of a funeral, black clothes, a sea of people who loved your wife, loved Integrity, and a smaller, but no less passionate, crowd who'd loved Daniela. You know you likely learned about cooking and cleaning and grappled with just how large the gap that Daniela had left in your life had been. How much you'd never thanked her for. How you'd never get a chance to, now.
But you don't remember much of that, not anymore. You consider it something of a blessing, really.
You woke up several months later. Taxes were due, and you wandered into her office without thinking, looking for the folder with the thing, you know the thing– and stopped in your tracks. Her office. You hadn't been in here since she died. Since that night, actually, the one where she'd begged you to keep this between you, help her fix it. A light blinked on her computer, beckoning.
Without thinking you pressed the glowing button. Her face, tearful but alive, appeared on the screen, and you staggered into the nearby chair.
"Press play to begin," a jarringly digital voice said.
You could leave, you'd thought furiously, sensing the world tipping on its axis once again. You felt seasick. You could leave and this would still be here, when you were ready. Someday.
"Press play to begin," the machine repeated.
It was the least you could do, though. Listen to her this one last time.
You forced yourself to breathe and pressed play.
Her smile was watery but still there, somehow. "Darling," she began, and your heart tried to rend itself from your chest. Her voice. God, how you'd missed it. "Darling, I'm sorry."
"No," you replied, shaking your head insistently. "You didn't— you're perfect— why would you— "
The recording, being a recording, continued despite your protests. "If you're seeing this, it means I haven't stopped it. It means I'm dead."
A sob, harsh and unbeckoned, erupted violently from your chest. You forced your eyes to stay fixed on the screen despite this.
"I knew, or I thought I did, that telling the Mayor about the rehabilitation centers would lead to this. I've never been more sorry to be right. But hear me, Alex, okay? I do not blame you. I can't. You want to believe the best in people. I couldn't bear to see you lose that. Promise me you won't."
You sat frozen in the cushy office chair, unable to respond.
"I've hidden my research, in case this video falls into the wrong hands. It's in our special spot. I need you to protect it for me, Alex. These people, they deserve help. They need protection as much as any citizen. Please be safe. I—"
She cut off as Jackson, dragging a blanket behind him and blearily rubbing his eyes, opened the door. "Momma?" he said with a stifled yawn. "What're you doing?" He frowned as he caught sight of the tears flowing down her cheeks. "Are you sad?"
She turned, and gave their son a smile. God, he's grown, you thought absently. She scooped him up from the floor, sleep-rumpled and cuddly in a way he wasn't often anymore, and breathed him in. "No, no, I'm not sad. Just getting emotional. You know I love you, don't you Jackson?"
He yawned again and nestled in closer, already halfway back asleep, propped up on her hip. "Yes Momma," he answered. "I love you too."
She clutched him closer and closed her eyes for a moment. "Hopefully," she said quietly, urgently, "hopefully this will just be a cute video to show you some day." She was talking to you, now, her eyes boring into the camera. "But in case it's not, I love you so much, Alex. Loving you, fighting alongside you, raising Jackson with you, has been the joy of my life. I could never regret a single moment."
She stood with Jackson still in her arms and clicked off the video. It froze there, your son's sleeping face tucked peacefully into her neck, her hair streaming down as she looked at the controls, beautiful and everything your heart yearns for, even in her distress.
You're not sure how long you sat there. A long time. Seconds. Years. Moments. A lifetime.
Daniela thought the Mayor had assassinated her. Over the rehabilitation center. Not a careless accident. Purposeful.
A part of you rebelled at the thought. He wouldn't. He'd been so kind after her passing— But you'd doubted Daniela one too many times already. This time, the least you could do was believe her.
The last thing she'd asked you to do. Protect them. You were good at that, you thought. Or you had been. Until you weren't. Until that last time. But you would do this for her, if it was the last thing you did.
It turned out, though, that being Strength, the super hero who'd torn the hearts of the nation asunder in the viral clip of his grief, was not particularly conducive to carrying out clandestine operations. Neither was being a newly single parent, still entombed in mourning. Or being unable to catch a glimpse of the Mayor without being consumed by rage.
You refused to fail her again. So one night, contemplating a vial of the only poison that could kill you, you devised a plan.
If a fake battle worked for the Mayor, it would work for you, too. You left a video, just like she had, for Jackson, and painstakingly included the clips from hers that wouldn't reveal anything. You told him you loved him, that you were proud of him. You included a few hidden messages for Power, just in case. And left a note under Power's favorite coffee mug, saying only, "Take care of him."
The plan went off without a hitch. A grand, spectacular battle, drawing the eye of the world. Strength returned, finally, from his understandable leave after the loss of his beloved wife. Saving the day again. Life going back to normal. Except. In the end, it was not good that prevailed. Strength was dead. And in his place, a new villain announced to the world: Virtuosicide. The slayer of the invincible.
You'd only wanted to be able to continue your work in peace, but a few months after your transformation, you'd gotten a knock at your door. Gabby, Daniela's best friend. She wanted out, she said, by any means necessary, her voice grim. You couldn't tell her, wouldn't, of your real identity. That you'd been friends, once, and that you couldn't bear to kill her, not after so much death already. But neither could you turn her away. So you devised a plan. One, you hoped, that would make Daniela proud.
You'd send her away, to some quiet place. She wouldn't be a superhero anymore, but she could be happy. Rest. Peace. Out from under the stifling thumb of the Mayor. The hero's alliance had become even more punishing after Strength died. Her eyes changed, then, hope and suspicion swirling in those depths. "Why are you doing this?" she asked.
"A promise I made, once," you answered before you could think better of it. Maybe they needed protection, too.
You coordinated a time, a place, a battle. She smiled widely, just once, like she had constantly before Daniela died. She hesitated.
You nodded. "I have up to two answers."
"Integrity— I mean I know I saw— was that—?"
Your nails bit into your palms to keep you from grimacing. "No," you said curtly. "It wasn't."
She hesitated. You thought you knew what it would be, silently apologizing to Daniela as you prepared to lie about Strength's death.
"Can I tell anyone? Others?"
You blinked. "If you trust them implicitly, yes. But after this battle, Ingenuity will be dead. You won't be able to see them, or contact them, or visit the city, after. But you cannot tell anyone else."
She nodded slowly. "I don't think," she said slowly, as though discovering the sentence as she spoke it, "that I'm the only one. Who wants this."
You sigh and scrub a hand over your face. "Right. Of course. Yes. I'll help."
She looked at you for a long time after that. "That must've been some promise," she murmured.
For a fleeting moment you considered telling her. Instead, you responded, "It was."
After that, they came in waves. All looking for escape. And you grew more powerful, as they gifted you their now-unneeded tools of the trade. The "rehabilitation center" never held anyone for more than an hour before you broke them out. You sent them with the rest. Super powers often caused volatility, and the difference between a villain and a hero, or a former hero, was primarily training on control. You kept an eye on them too. The heroes, while glad to be out from under the Mayor's control, were itching to do some good in the world again. They kept your secret, and the secrets of each other.
A new Mayor was elected, and Thorogood retired to a ranch outside of the city. You still haven't figured out what you want to do with him. You, curious, waited until the new Mayor had surely been briefed about the rehabilitation center's conditions. You brought in a construct, one of the pieces of tech Ingenuity had made to help with your ruse, and watched. The officers, gleeful to finally have a victim, tortured it until nearly dead by the end of the day. Not just Thorogood, then.
You did your own research. You weren't smart, that was Daniela and always would be, but you had the love beating in your breast like a boxer practicing for the prize championship. You found that it didn't begin with Thorogood either. That it'd started at the open, more or less. On one particularly rainy day, invisibility draped around you (a gift from Privacy), you brought a shovel out to an abandoned stretch of road outside town, and lost your breakfast as you found bodies.
It wasn't one person, you found, but the whole thing. Rot built into the very fabric of the hero's alliance itself.
So this work was protecting them too, in a way. Your body count stacked higher. You wished Daniela had told you how to fix it. You wished, with every aching, bloodstained piece of you, that she was still here with you.
And then that day. Jackson, graduating from the Little Heroes' Academy. All grown up. You'd watched him on the fuzzy television screen, pride and horror competing in your chest, as he graduated and took his position.
Head of the hero's alliance. Just like you had been. Like father, like son.
He had a title now, too. Protection. Oh, Jackson, you breathed, your arms aching to hold him. Oh, son.
You don't dodge this car on time. That stubbornness, you think, as your body is flung backwards and you feel several vertebrae snap, that rage, though, that's all you. You suppress a rueful smile at the thought.
"You've killed everyone I care about," he growled, and that was yours too. "Ingenuity. Freedom. Power." His gaze darkens even further. "Strength."
You wince, as the words, missing their target, strike true nonetheless. You need to go. Maybe another time. But the transporter button is pinned out of your reach. You'll have to move the car. And distract him, if only for a moment. You weigh your options as he approaches slowly. He's good, you know that. He'll catch it, you think.
You look him in the eye and whisper, "I'm sorry," before you heave the car off of you, and jab your finger into the button.
The hero formerly known as Power doesn't flinch as you open the front door to your apartment. He's sprawled on your recliner, the only place in the room worth sitting. "You should tell him," he says, taking a sip of the last beer you'd had in the fridge.
"I told you, you can't be here," you grumble, but it does hold as much heat as it should. He's putting everyone in danger, including you. But you'd be lying if you said you didn't miss him. And it had been a long day. "No," you say, heading further into the room and grabbing a leftover pizza box from the fridge and perching on the small dining room table. It holds you up in encouragement. "Who am I not telling what?"
Randy rolls his eyes. "Your son. Everything. That you're alive. That you're Virtuosicide. That you haven't killed anyone."
That last one isn't true, but you never told him that. About Daniela. No one can know.
"Why are you being so stubborn?" he says, unfazed. "I mean sure, he'll probably be a little upset. But you could be in his life again! And it'd get him out of there." He stares into the fizzing can for a moment before glancing at you imploringly. "It's bad, Al."
You frown at that, disliking your son being in such a position. "I can't. He hates Virtuosicide, and he never goes anywhere outside the city, where it'd be safe to tell him the rest."
"You know," he says, his voice gaining a hard edge, "some day you're going to die for real. And all those secrets you're lugging around will go with you, if you're not careful."
"You talk like I don't have a plan," you grouse around a mouthful of cold and stale pizza.
His eyebrows shoot up. "Well this is the first I'm hearing of it."
You roll your neck with a wince. Being hit by a car fuckin sucks. "It would be. You don't become the most prolific and deadly supervillain in Metropolis by having loose lips."
He looks at you with his head cocked for a long moment. "You're not going to tell me." It's not a question.
You answer anyway. "Correct." You close the pizza box and put it back in the fridge.
He sighs and picks himself off your chair. "Well, let me know if I can help."
You scrunch up your nose, at that.
You feel the adrenaline race through your body as you hop over deadly projectiles on the roof of the rehabilitation center. You're not exactly happy, of course, doing this, but it's when you feel the most alive. They added another layer of security. Nothing to worry about, really, but adding something of a challenge to today's breakout.
You slip quietly into a cell with a young boy strapped spread eagle to a table. He starts crying harder when he sees you, but you shush him and undo his restraints with efficient movements. "It's alright," you whisper to him, painfully aware the footage will be thoroughly scrutinized later. "I'm going to get you out of here."
"P-please don't kill me," he whimpers, shrinking from you.
You don't have time for this. 15 seconds to be precise. "I won't," you say, glancing around.
You freeze as you see eyes, Daniela's eyes, fixed on you. Jackson. He's here. Not Protection. In his civilian attire. Wearing a janitor's uniform, eyes locked on you. You wince and wonder if Randy's prediction might come sooner than either of you thought. But Jackson stays where he is, and after noticing you notice him, pretends to cower from your gaze.
You focus back on the kid. "I'll keep you safe," you whisper urgently, "but we need to go, now."
He tearily nods and puts his hand in yours.
Permission given, you quickly wrap as gentle of an arm as you can manage around his midsection, and dart towards your escape.
On the drive back home, you think about Jackson's presence. Community service? Was he looking for insights about you? Another possibility dawns on you.
You slam on the breaks and curse a blue streak, before remembering where you are as the car behind you honks in indignation.
Weren't you just thinking it a while ago?
But that's not what sends a chill down your spine.
He's bright, much brighter than you ever were. Of course he'd figure out that something was wrong. But he also drank all the koolaid you left behind. And there was a lot to drink. If he discovered what was there and tried to tell someone—
You force yourself to pull over to the side of the road, then rest your head on the steering wheel with a thump. No. Not again. You can't allow them to take someone else from you just for having a big heart. For genuinely caring about people.
You have to do something.
Randy had gifted Jackson his house in his will. So the plan, once you made it, was fairly simple to execute. A hatch just barely popped open. The one to Randy's basement, that had once held all his supplies. It still did, but less now, as he'd given you anything you'd wanted. Tucked in a corner. A box. Momentos. And at the bottom, a disk. Daniela's handwriting. For Alex and Jackson.
You'd left all of it, this time. He deserved to know, you thought, that it'd been your fault.
You watch him on the small camera Randy had installed years ago. You watch him pull out his laptop and put in the disk. Hit play.
You sit there, miles apart, as he watches the video over and over again, tears streaming down his face. He'd recognize some of it, from what you'd left him in yours.
"I'm sorry buddy," you whisper at the screen.
As if he heard you, he turns and stares at the camera, then sends a nearby book hurtling towards it.
For long months you don't hear anything. Protection doesn't track you down to attack you in the middle of traffic, but he doesn't frequent anywhere in the sight of your cameras either. You tell yourself that he's smart, not to worry. True to form, you don't listen.
One night, you hear the sound of the door to your public lair being thrown open with a screech. You snap and your clothes transform into your regular villain attire.
Protection stands in the doorway. Something's wrong, your brain whispers.
"Ah," you say, unsure if this is a trap. Keeping up pretenses just in case. "Are you here to finally join me, Protection?"
A manilla envelope, thick with papers, hangs in one hand. His eyes are dull as he looks at you. "No," he says flatly.
"Cut the shit, Virtuosicide." His voice is ragged. "I want it."
"What they all told me. I want it. I want out. No battles, no drama, no innocents getting hurt." He holds out his arms and opens his hands. The folder drops to the floor and papers spill dramatically. He doesn't give them a passing glance. "I want to die."
A lump catches in your throat. Oh, Jackson.
You press a button to close the door, and it does, closing you in together, the ringing of the large sheet of metal the only sound in the cavernous room for long moments.
You skulk down the stairs – a skill you've taken years to perfect – towards him. His eyes track your every movement, but he makes no moves to stop you, until you're standing right in front of him. Everything within you clambers to wrap that disparing bravery in your arms.
"Does it matter?" he bites out. "Just do it. Or is a battle part of it for you? Do I need to—"
"Of course it matters," you say, your voice low and soothing. Unpracticed, after all these years, but he blinks at you instead of raging on.
"The rehabilitation center. You knew, didn't you? That's why you take them. My mom did too, and they killed her for it." He eyes you suspiciously then backs up a step, raising a nearby loose pipe (no villain's lair is complete without a loose pipe, you always say) defensively. "You don't work for the Mayor, do you?" Layers move behind his eyes as he thinks.
You bark out a laugh at that. "No," you say, "I don't."
He lowers the pipe, and steps back towards you. "All right. Do it, then. You killed my father. Don't you want to finish the job?"
Anyone who hadn't seen his childhood sobs probably wouldn't notice the quaver in his bottom lip.
The dam breaks along with your heart. You wrap him in your arms.
"Hey what—?" he struggles against you.
You snap the villain attire off as he launches you across the room and into some barrels (also quite necessary). He marches himself over to you, a bit of that fire returning. "What the hell! You're old enough to be my—" All of him freezes as he catches sight of your face. He just stares at you for long moments before he crumples like a puppet whose strings have been cut. His knees hit the floor with a too-familiar crunch. "Dad?" he whispers brokenly.
You pull him into your arms again, unable to do anything else. This time he doesn't struggle. You pull back to look at his bewildered face. "Hey, son," you say softly. "We have a lot to talk about."
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