Chapter Text
“We could take it.”
“Would that be wrong?”
“Maybe. But we deserve to reap a bit of what we’ve sown, right?”
“We could take it.”
“Yeah.”
It’s not an unusual conversation for them to have, but it comes back to Phil later that night.
“Techno, are we the bad guys?”
Techno tilts his head to one side. “Why do you ask? We help people, right?”
“I’m pretty sure we just hurt people.” Phil rubs his fingers together and feels the slickness of the blood on them.
“We stop people from hurting other people.”
“I guess you’re right.”
“You’re not thinkin’ of quittin’, are you? I mean, it’s fine if you are, I just wanna know.”
“No,” Phil answers right away. “Universe, no. I love doing this. It’s just… people die because of us, and sometimes we steal from them. That can’t be a good guys thing, right?”
Techno shrugs. “I never said we were the good guys. Just that we’re not the bad guys.”
It’s good enough for Phil.
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It was a rough patrol. When they reach Phil’s house, Techno goes directly to shower. Phil ends up at the kitchen sink, washing someone else’s blood off his hands and trying to get the worst of it out of his sleeves and poncho.
Are we the bad guys? Phil would be lying to say he never intended to hurt anyone, but he never intended to be a villain either. He wanted justice for Kristin, then he wanted to belong, then… he isn’t sure what he wants now. This, maybe. Things just as they are.
He can picture Kristin in the kitchen, leaving back against the counter next to him. The difference between justice and vengeance is which side of the knife you’re on. Rethinking the saying now, he doesn’t think it meant what he thought it meant that day at Techno’s apartment.
I had to, he’d say if Kristin were there to hear it.
No you didn’t, she’d respond. She wouldn’t sound mean, though. She was almost always smiling.
I did, Phil would insist. What else was I supposed to do?
You aren’t supposed to do anything, but you always have a choice.
So did the asshole who shot you, Phil would reply, except that if Kristin were here he’d have no reason to say that.
You had the choice to be better than him, and you didn’t take it. Phil can imagine the accusatory tilt of her eyebrows, saying that she loves him but he needs to rethink.
He’s everyone’s favorite hero. There is no “better than him.”
Do you really think he’s good because he’s a hero?
Well, no. Phil pauses in his imaginary conversation. His sleeves are soaked to the elbows in cold water, and he’s gripping the edge of the sink so hard it hurts. If that hero was a good guy, he wouldn’t have shot Kristin. And Phil hates that hero, but he doesn’t think of himself as a bad guy. The lines are so much blurrier than he’d ever assumed.
I’m not a bad person, he thinks. He’s not sure if it’s to himself or his imagination of Kristin.
If she were still here, Kristin would smirk. Is that what the news would say about you?
She’d have a point. The couple headlines Phil sees on Zephyrus and Protesilaus (in increasingly more prominent places, for the record) are getting more negative every day. Less “when will they show up to register as heroes” and more “when will they get arrested by registered heroes.” A reporter called Phil “Shadowman”. Like the Disney villain. He doesn’t appreciate it very much.
…Does he have to like it, though? He’s not doing this to see himself in the news, even though that's nice. He loves this whole vigilante thing, more than he ever thought he would. He’s glad to have found Techno, and honestly he wouldn’t be particularly eager to change their methods even if it changed their press perception.
Phil realizes that he doesn’t care if he’s a bad person. There’s a wanted criminal using his shower, and a body in an alleyway that’ll never get to attack the person they were going to, and literal blood on his hands, and Phil doesn’t care.
As long as he can keep this new life he’s building, he doesn’t care if he has to hurt people. He doesn’t care if he didn’t take the chance to be the better man.
It’s not your fault, he’d tell Kristin if she were here.
Whose fault is it? she’d ask. She knew him like no one else. She knew how to make him think.
That hero, Phil answers in his mind. His act of violence started all of this.
You always have a choice. Kristin loved choices. Second chances. Phil loved that about Kristin. You can blame whoever you like, but it’s your fault.
It is his fault. He can recognize that. He chose this pathway, and he chooses the actions that make the papers call for his arrest. It doesn’t shake him like it used to. Phil no longer feels out of his depth.
Universe, he’s glad Kristin isn’t alive to see this.
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Techno calls him the next morning at eight. For a moment, Phil thinks he’s dreaming when he sees the caller ID, because Techno never calls.
He still picks up. “Tech? What’re you doing?”
“Phil, have you watched the news this mornin’?”
“Mate, I just woke up.”
“Wake up earlier next time. Have you watched the news?” Techno sounds impatient, almost irritated.
“No, I haven’t watched the news. What’s happening?”
Techno sighs, staticky over the phone. “You’ve probably missed the segment anyway. Just google it later.”
“Google what, mate?” Phil’s starting to sound irritated himself.
“We’re villains.”
“What?”
“The committee that runs the registered heroes held a press conference. Zephyrus and Protesilaus are officially classified as villains. They called us a ‘public menace,’ Phil.” Techno sounds like he’s almost laughing on the last sentence.
“You sound chipper about it.”
“Honestly, I’ve been seein’ this comin’ for a while. Superpowered anarchists don’t win a lot of favor with bureaucrats, generally. Thought you’d be more upset, though. You’re the idealist.”
Phil shrugs, then remembers Techno can’t see him. “I don’t care. Never liked those sponsored heroes anyway.”
Techno laughs, then pauses. “It’s gonna get harder just to do our patrols. They’re gonna start comin’ for us.”
Phil wouldn’t give up for the world at this point. “Let them come.”