Chapter Text
-z-
Danny is fourteen when he loses his parents to plague and, in his grief, levels his entire village.
-
Invisibles are not immortal, but they’re the closest thing - living for centuries, their aging slowing the longer they live, then slowing even more as their powers grow. They pass through crowds unnoticed - their faces forgotten as soon as they’re gone.
-
“So, what are we looking at here?” Meka asks.
Chin takes a deep breath before he pulls the data up on the tech table and, with a flick of his wrist, sends it up to the screens as he says, “This is Indigo 9-0-6 a.k.a. ‘Zoey’.”
“‘Indigo’--?” Kono asks.
“An Invisible,” Steve elaborates, his arms crossing over his chest, his voice low as he realizes the magnitude of what’s happened. “Someone’s murdered an Invisible.”
-
By the time Danny is forty, he looks only nineteen.
By the time he’s a hundred, he looks only twenty-five.
By the time he’s two hundred--
You get the picture.
-
It is not in an Invisible’s nature to fight, but their becoming is always followed by death; their Manifestation is always paid for with blood. Some say it’s the price they pay for how long they’ll live. Some say it’s a warning to the region. No one knows for sure, though, because no Invisible ever talks about it. They don’t necessarily do interviews.
An Invisible is there to keep the balance. They keep the playing fields level. They open their eyes and they See and they Watch and, when, or if, the time is right to interfere, they do so.
The youngest of them try to expand themselves, try to fix the world’s problems, try to fix economies and change hearts - but it’s a fool’s errand and only experience will lead them to recognize that.
The oldest Invisibles will keep their Sight more regional - though the definition of regional can vary by individual. Some will take care of large swathes of rural areas, nurturing and grooming and protecting folk - watching as their charges grow from infancy on into adulthood and then on into the grave. Other Invisibles will stick to a city - it’s rumored that each borough in New York City has taken on the personality of its resident Invisible - enjoying the dense population and all the heartbreak and chaos that comes with it.
-
“Do we know what Zoey was in Hawaii for?” Meka asks.
“Not yet,” Chin answers.
“The better question,” Steve says, “is how in the hell was someone able to put a bullet between the eyes of an Invisible? Zoey had to have known this was coming, right? She had to have known--” Steve drops his sentence, shaking his head as he stares at the crime scene photos.
The Asian American woman was young - or, at least looked young - according to her records, she had Manifested in San Francisco in 1906.
“What if it was a form of suicide?” Kono asks. “Living that long? It’s gotta wear you down.”
“That’s not unheard of,” Chin says, raising a finger on one hand as he uses his other to tap away at the screen of the tech table, before flicking new information up onto the screens. “But there is a process. If an Invisible wants out, they’re supposed to contact the First - which, that’s just a title; the First is whoever the oldest Invisible is in the world.”
“They usually use a gun?” Meka asks.
“No,” Chin says with a hurried shake of his head. “Everything I’ve got says that Invisibles don’t like guns. But who knows for sure?” Chin shrugs. “Whatever the process is for an Invisible’s retirement - we don’t have the information. No one does. Anthropologists have some guesses about it being some kind of ritual, but it’s never been confirmed.”
-
Danny slides into his seat in first class and pretends to actively listen to the beautiful Samoan air steward as he runs through the aircraft’s safety briefing.
Later, they chat about what kind of weather Danny should expect in Honolulu, whether Danny should take up surfing (“really, sir, the sharks aren’t that bad this time of year, you’ll be fine!”), and some places a tourist should avoid.
As soon as Danny’s disembarked, the air steward forgets Danny’s face and name completely and is left to wonder at the inexplicable feeling of loss in his chest.
-
Max hears the doors to his office open and he greets his visitor like an old friend.
-
Danny builds the pyre high and he says the requisite words and, with a farewell kiss to the forehead of his old friend, he sets Zoey’s body alight.
-
Steve sucks in a breath.
“Everyone, this is Indigo 3-4-9 a.k.a. ‘Danny’,” Chin says, pulling up the camera footage from outside of Max’s office. “By all accounts, this is the First. Or, well, the current one. He died, as his number suggests, in 1349, just as the Black Death was getting started.”
“Looking good for someone pushing 700,” Meka says.
The footage is playing and just as Meka’s words are out, Danny looks up at the camera, as if he’d heard Meka, and gives a flirty wave at the camera. Meka takes a full step backwards.
“They can’t actually--” he starts, unsure. He cocks his head to the side and points at the screen before he glances quickly at Chin. “Can he?”
They all turn back to the video - watch as Danny chats amicably with Max before disappearing into the work room to zip Zoey into a body bag, then he’s walking out, the doors opening themselves for him as the gurney follows him out of its own accord.
He is just about to pass out of sight of the last camera when he looks up, takes his phone out of his pocket, and waves it a little, pantomiming answering it. Then he winks and he’s gone.
Just then, Max is calling them, saying he’s found a note--
-
Danny boards his flight, first class, and no one notices him.
“Do you smell a fire, honey?” someone asks.
“Another passenger must’ve gone to a luau or something before they came on,” someone else answers, jealousy tinging their voice.
-
See you in four years, Steven.
-Danny
-z-
End.