Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Aye’s crying, just a little, as the wastepaper basket burns.

The tears aren’t sadness or even anger this time – they’re the same frustration that had the paper sparking into flames in his hands in the first place, the frustration that comes from him not having any fucking clue what he’s looking for or how to find it. He’s got where to look, which felt like a big discovery at the time, but now it just feels like a scavenger hunt.

His old notes aren’t a great loss – everything on them was probably wrong – but he used to be better at not setting things on fire when he didn’t mean to. Aye’s never been great at using his powers but not being able to suppress them is new.

Well, two months old exactly.

Since his uncle was killed so brutally they could only recover part of his leg and a half-recognisable necklace.

It’s bent in half and the pattern can barely be seen, but Aye grabs it and holds it and tries to breathe.

The fire in the basket seems to be dying down when he comes back to himself, and he douses it with his always-to-hand mini extinguisher just to take it the rest of the way there.

Windows open, fans on, and Aye sits back at his table and gets out a new notebook.

Then, with trembling hands, he retrieves his uncle’s old notebook to place beside it. It’s not so useful, really, that he needs it for this at all, but the idea of not having any of Uncle Di at the table when he tries to make this plan feels wrong.

He unfolds the map he keeps stored between the pages of the notebook, crosses off another spot, and starts to write his thoughts.

Uncle Di went to a lot of places with his phone on, but he didn’t take it to his second job; that means it wasn’t destroyed or seized when he was killed, and Aye still has it. He keeps it turned off now he has the map on paper, though, with every path his uncle took in the sixth months before he died traced onto it.

It took Aye a while.

Lucky that nobody wanted to make him go to school, the condition he was in. He wouldn’t have had the time.

He doesn’t have much time now, because he is back in school, but it’s not like he was going to do anything else after school. The only person he wanted to talk to is dead; the only places he would’ve gone feel empty.

So Aye writes his notes, his ideas, his theories, and he only cries a little bit.

Tonight’s plan will take him to another place from Uncle Di’s phone records, another place that doesn’t seem like somewhere he would’ve gone for fun – it’s an old community centre in what used to be a town outside the city but is now basically just a suburb, and the internet tells Aye that the centre hasn’t been in regular use for about ten years.

Uncle Di went there seven times, at random intervals, in the time period Aye has maps for.

He puts on all-black clothing, no mask, and walks out the front door.

Mae isn’t home anyway.

It’s not quite dark when he gets to the town-but-really-a-suburb he’s aiming for, and the bus doesn’t have many people on it.

He might look a little suspicious in the all-black get up, but the only people out seem to be an old couple walking their dog, so he’s not too worried. The walk from the bus stop to the old community centre is brief and it’s over well-paved, oddly silent roads.

When it comes into view, he tries to focus on what he can see with his other senses, and not his eyes. All his eyes can tell him is what the photos online could – old community centre, no windows, probably large enough for an old folks dance class or something.

His powers tell him it’s slightly colder than outside, completely empty of people, and there’s a floor underground that’s even colder.

Infrared vision isn’t the most useful power in a fight; he’s glad he has it, though.

The door is locked, but only with a normal front-door kind of lock, and Aye taught himself to pick those even before Uncle Di died, so he’s in quickly.

But there is a camera.

He ducks back from it, hides his face in his collar, and continues on. It’s risky, yeah, but he hasn’t got a lot he isn’t happy to risk.

It was only one camera, he’s pretty sure, just pointed at the door – quickly scouting around the main hall that makes up most of the building doesn’t reveal any more.

Or anything at all, really.

It’s just a community centre; the only things here are dust and metal chairs.

Laminate flooring, warped near the walls but only in a way that says it wasn’t fitted quite right when first installed.

Quiet except for his footsteps.

Aye shudders – it’s not that much colder than outside, he just doesn’t like it here.

Not getting answers.

He’s nearly getting frustrated enough that he’d have to watch out for sparks when he spots a cold-channel, barely noticeable even if he squints, that can only lead to the path to the floor below.

Crouching down, he feels at the flooring, and there is a seam he hadn’t spotted.

It seems to squeak as he pulls it back, but maybe that’s just his imagination; when it’s up, it reveals a wooden trapdoor.

Paranoia whispers that he shouldn’t go in somewhere he doesn’t know another exit to – the grief that’s been driving him this whole time tells it to fuck off.  He pulls it, feels a give, and lets it swing open.

At least there’s a ladder under it.

The rungs shine to him like the metal chairs upstairs; bright in their coolness.

He knows it’s only a single floor deep.

There’s nothing to be afraid of.

Aye descends.

It’s anticlimactic to step off the ladder and onto the ground, and he really can’t see all that much. The ladder being metal gave it a cooler surface temperature than the air around, but there aren’t any heaters down here, or people, and the laminate has squeaked back into its original position even though the trapdoor still hangs down where he’d left it.

There’s a door, though, and he doesn’t think there are more cameras, so there’s nothing to stop him from snooping.

He turns on the flashlight he carries in his pocket – no phone, not with the amount of information he’s already recovered from his uncle’s, but normal plastic flashlights are easy enough to buy – and looks around.

This floor is a little smaller in every dimension than the hall above, but there’s more in it.

At first, the height of the counters and the presence of sinks makes him think he’s in a kitchen, like the centre had needed it to cook for massive groups or something, but then he realises how unlikely that is, and that he’s really standing in a-

“Lab,” he whispers. Why was Uncle Di visiting a lab?

Whatever equipment used to be here – his mind conjures up images of cartoon devices, bubbling and whirring as tubes spiral off in every direction, and then of horror-movie chairs with straps on the arms and his uncle having blood drawn – it’s not here anymore. This place might have more counters and less space, but it’s nearly as empty as the hall.

The ownership of this building was easy enough to find – the local council – but it stretches belief that the legal owners have any idea this is here.

He starts feeling around, looking on hands and knees for something else, checking in the doors under the counters but they all just lead to empty cupboard spaces, and this is too big of a lead to end up with nothing again but there’s nothing here. Rationally, he knows that even if he leaves now, this is a big clue, but he can’t.

Aye keeps searching.

Then he hears voices from the direction of the trapdoor and his mind goes blank.

Fuck, the camera.

He turns off his flashlight and tucks himself into the cupboard he was just feeling blindly into the back of, pulls the door shut, and tries not to breathe loudly.

Lucky – the counters are thin. His heat vision works through them.

Two figures, both tall, moving in creepy-quiet synchronisation, enter the same way he had, and there’s a murmur. One of the figures is much warmer than the other.

He can make out a, “-left in a hurry, after the-“ from the cooler one, interrupted by a motion of the warmer’s hand.

Something’s nagging at him.

The figures get closer, but they bypass the counters entirely, walking past his hiding spot without saying anything else audible.

He finally hears something when they reach the wall – a loud clicking of some kind.

A safe, maybe? Fuck, he wants to be out there.

One voice, deeper than the other, he’s sure from the warmer figure, says, “That’s all of it. The Children of Memory needed to flee.”

Fleeing, he’s not sure what that’s about, but the mention of that organisation makes his insides freeze.

Uncle Di was friends with the person who founded that group.

Nobody’s supposed to know that name.

“They won’t get away with it, Master,” says the other voice, and it finally clicks who these people are.

He should have known; he’d seen them in a fight once, and even though the television doesn’t show heat the way they look to him has always been vivid.

It’s the hero duo, Solis and Shade. Solis has powers kind of like Aye’s own – he can generate heat, but Aye’s pretty damn sure from his position that he can’t sense it like Aye can – and Shade has some kind of darkness powers that must cool him down too, so they look like a big contrast to Aye.

They’re talking about the Children of Memory with real hatred; they’re saying this lab belonged to them.

If Aye manages to escape without being spotted, he knows, he has plans to make.

Solis and Shade are famous heroes, sure, but they must be his enemies – at the very least, they have information he needs. He can follow one lead, look for anything else owned by the Children of Memory and try to track them down; he can also follow the other and try to shake these two down for what they know. What they’ve done.

In that case, black hoodies and jeans aren’t enough anymore.

Aye needs a costume.

Chapter Text

Deliberate, attention-getting, and themed; Aye’s new villainous persona is carefully thought out and even more carefully deployed.

As a hero duo, his enemies are some of the most tightly wound-in with government powers. The rumour online is that they’re directly employed by the government, rather than just licensed like most of their kind. He doesn’t know if that’s necessarily true, because Uncle Di made it sound like the government deliberately kept their hands mostly out of doing that kind of thing.

‘If one of them does something awful,’ he’d explained, ‘They get support until they don’t. If they’re kept at arm’s length they can be amputated like one, too.’

He wipes his face.

I’ll do more than that, I’ll keep tearing until I’m at the centre; until I know what happened, he promises himself.

Then, face dry, he puts the domino mask in place.

The good thing about Solis and Shade being even more dependent on the government than other heroes is that it makes them easy to find, regular in their routines.

It’s a royal anniversary; they’ll be in the capital city observing for a likely protest.

Flare’s going to cut them off before they can find one.

(Flare – it’s his new name. Like a solar flare, it makes it obvious he’s specifically targeting Solis and Shade, makes it clear how he intends to position himself not as a villain but as their villain. Makes it less likely another hero will end up deciding to personally take him down. Also it goes with his powers and the bright orange of his new suit.)

He’s on the fire escape of a tall building, wearing a grey overcoat so as not to spoil the surprise, when he sees them.

It sets his nerves buzzing.

His first thought is, I can’t believe I was right, because picking the right building was kind of a crapshoot, but they always seem to come from above even though they can’t, as far as he knows, really fly… then it was about their two powers.

Shade needs shadow; Solis needs light. They were going to need a tall building at the right angle to have a corner they can hang around, and far enough from the next, slightly taller, building over to let sunlight in but close enough to allow them to move away in any directi-

They’re moving.

He’ll think about how smart and lucky he’s been later.

Solis is looking at something on his wrist – studying it for details? – and Shade is looking to him and they’re moving away from Aye, not towards him, because clearly something had to go wrong. He had a really good dramatic announcement planned but he was supposed to be calm, languid, scary to them.

Aww.

Oh well; he’ll just have to catch up. At least they’re distracted by a discussion of something as they perch on the other side of the fire escape and prepare to launch into a swing – Solis, he knows, is some kind of resistant to gravity, but Shade doesn’t seem to be so it’s usually grappling hooks for both of them – and Aye drops his grey coat, feeling vaguely like some kind of train pervert, and tries to channel those nerves into-

Fizz.

“Evening, gentlemen,” he announces his presence in words that aren’t anywhere near as explosive as the line of fire he’s just shot in their direction.

There’s no fuel for it – he was careful about that – so it fizzles before either of them has even turned. That makes it so all they can see is him, and both superheroes turn their full gazes directly onto him. Solis’s jaw is set; Shade’s is twitching nervously.

It’s kind of funny.

The contrast.

With another line of fire, this one much closer to them, he adds, “Are you happy to be out in the light? Nobody’s getting killed for seeing you here, right?”

This is a guess.

It’s not a particularly educated guess.

But Uncle Di wasn’t a fighter and he wasn’t someone who would be targeted to get to anyone else, Aye’s sure of that – his friendship with the Children of Memory leader, Aye knows about because of his own habit of snooping, and that’s a habit encouraged and honed by the same man who couldn’t be too mad at Aye for listening in and finding it out – but the important thing about that is that it was a friendship, not a collaboration.

Aye is certain of that. Uncle Di’s notebook documents a whole argument about his refusal to actually take part in what Aye is pretty sure is a Children of Memory action, and the conversation he’d overheard had been about gardening.

All that means that whatever happened to him was about something he knew, and it might not be to do with Solis and Shade, but-

Whoosh.

Solis doesn’t have Aye’s compunctions about his fire seeking out fuel, it seems, because he blasts a ball, small but hot, right back at him, and if Aye were to duck it would definitely keep going – he’s been watching enough of their fight footage to know that.

There’s a lot behind him that could burn.

Shade looks startled by the escalation – he’d been focused on Aye’s face, all serious and on-guard, but now he’s glancing confused at his partner and getting into a loose guard again – but Solis looks pretty furious, from what Aye can tell of his face.

Something in him files that away as he takes advantage of his quickly selected position to retreat-but-not up to the roof – he doesn’t turn his back on them, he just wants to lead them to the next step.

It’s perfect – they aren’t as fast in the ascent as him, and he doesn’t even have to use his grappling-hook-back-up-plan – and he’s got them in a nice cinematic position for the news helicopter that’s definitely going to fly overhead sooner rather than later.

He doesn’t even know what the news helicopter-industry would do if there weren’t supers around, really.

Weather reports?

This time, though, they aren’t around any flammable decorative elements, so he sends a big wall of flame at them both before they can get within a few meters of him, and he does it two-handed.

It’s more flame than he normally manages, but there’s a lot of excitement to channel, and that makes him more excited and nervous so the whole thing fuels itself, really.

One ball of flame, Solis’s usual opener, hits in his direction, but it’s close enough to Aye’s wall of fire that he’s able to see it sort of… sink in.

Aye can also feel it; he’s not sure why. This is his first time around someone else who uses fire like him.

The blood pumping in his ears and the wind that probably comes from being up this high but might, he guesses, also have something to do with all the heat and the fire, they’re both very loud, and Aye knows he needs to leave once he’s made himself nice and visible but he had that other secondary aim and he’s not sure what direction to leave in-

Something odd happens to his fire.

Solis appears to be gritting his teeth and saying something, but Aye doesn’t know if it’s a threat or an instruction to Shade – it could be a surrender, for all Aye can tell, and he’s worried the situation is getting out of control, and as all that is going on, his fire is like… ebbing away.

No… it’s not.

It’s getting pulled away.

Aye realises just in time that the feeling was a hint, and if he can feel Solis’s fire it makes sense that Solis can feel his and he’s been fighting other supers so long that-

Fuck.

He has control of Aye’s fire, and Aye’s nervous excitement no longer feels like his own fuel – as the wall pulls back, roars fierce and tall but structured in a way Aye has no idea how he’d even start doing, and he’s probably saying something again, but Aye drops the wall-

The wall doesn’t drop-

He runs.

And drops.

Not the grappling hook, not yet, he’s too high up for that to be a good idea when, really, all the gym training that every kid who ever fantasised about being a hero signed up for suddenly seems a lot more like a game than it felt like at the time, but he does still know how to take advantage of a fire escape.

And two floors down, he’s sure they’re in pursuit but if he looks up they’ll get him, he absolutely knows it, so he sees an open window and throws himself through it and pulls it shut as much as it’ll go behind him – something clicks and he doesn’t look back, just runs.

Hero fight evacuation procedures are absolutely standard for office buildings, of course, and the tables he pass are chaotic, pens scattered, but the chairs are all pushed in neatly, so his path is actually pretty smooth.

Until-

“Stop!”

He’s coming from the same direction, how did he get through-

Did Aye not hear a window break, or something?

It’s Shade’s voice, and Shade is the one whose power is more mysterious, the one he’s been able to find least about, so maybe there’s something that helped him unlock it from the outside but then, where is Solis…

Aye can’t be cornered in a building.

He runs, flat out, but he knows Shade is gaining on him, and gaining, and Aye makes it to a door that should lead to some stairs, but then he’s choking-

The arm slams around his neck and it’s a hold and a blow in one, and if Solis isn’t here then Aye can risk the fire, except it won’t come as he tries to turn the terror-fizz into flame, and he scratches at the arm around his neck as he tries to get himself space to breathe.

Darkness draws in, and he kicks back wildly, connecting with something. The arm slips and he shoves his own right hand under it; when Shade’s grip tightens again, Aye has some wiggle room, and he can’t move but he can breathe.

Sounding winded and desperate, Shade demands, “Who are you? Who are you going to kill for seeing us? What did you mean?”

“It’s who’s already dead,” Aye spits back. “You don’t know, but your friend over there knew what I-“

“-Who did you kill?!”

Aye tries to drop and twist, but Shade’s hold on him is too tight, so Aye stops trying to pry the arm around his neck away and drops his left hand to his waist, trying for another tactic as Shade throws them to the ground.

He’s pressed under Shade’s body as he hisses back, “That’s my line. Ask Solis,” even though he’s not sure, right now, that’s right.

Solis knows something, though.

It leads to a confused, long pause, and Shade seems to slowly pull himself together as his murmurs, “Master Solis is a good-“

Footsteps.

“Shade!”

Aye freezes, and summons all the energy that’s refusing to be fire, and headbutts Shade as hard as he can.

Ringing in his ears and head painful, he throws himself back towards that door, wrenching something in his shoulder, and then he flees.

“Call me Flare,” is his parting shot.

As he goes, he pats an empty pocket, and summons a smile.

Tracker in place; attention received.

He did okay.

Aye sits on one of the picnic tables furthest from the school building and tries not to stare at his phone.

“They’re so cute,” someone giggles a table over, before getting loudly shushed.

The cute comment could be anything, any school couple, but if they’re getting shushed it’s less likely to be their friends than…

Hmm.

That might be an avenue?

He’s aware, in a vague kind of way, of the whole situation with one of his new classmates. The schools only merged last year, and he doesn’t know them all that well, but everyone’s seen how often that guy gets rescued by Hero Kid.

And Hero Kid is unofficial teammates with Shade, that’s been true since six months after Shade debuted as Solis’s sidekick, there was the earthquake-tornado villain duo in the city at the same time as that whole thing with the talking dolls-

It’s an avenue.

So, of course, is staring at his phone, waiting for any tracking data to appear.

He reminds himself for roughly the eighteenth time since lunch started that the lack of data is promising – if he hadn’t planted the tracker successfully, the data would be with his phone by now, the fact that it’s not means it’s either been destroyed or it’s gone into somewhere with scrambled communications.

Like one of the government facilities that are only legally a secret.

Aye stares at the dark screen impatiently anyway.

“Do you mind if we… sit-“

The younger student jumps when he looks up blankly at her, and a pack of three girls scurry off, giggling nervously. That happens, sometimes.

Aye isn’t really sure why.

He watches as they go to sit on the grass, and notices that all the other picnic tables are full; lots of giggling, too.

Whatever that’s about, it’s unlikely to get in the way of his case, so he turns his focus to something that might; the fading bruises on his neck and torso.

No burns, he didn’t lose that much control, and he’s been able to summon fire since, but the fizz that sits under his skin hasn’t really gone away – the confusion and desperation that had been driving him now feel more like hope and determination – but the bruises…

Solis has something to do with Uncle Di’s death; Shade is Solis’s partner.

But Shade seemed confused.

Shade’s also strong and has actually trained to fight and win. He might be Solis’s weakness, but he might be a problem in his own right.

Aye doesn’t know his face exactly – the only time he’d been close enough he could have taken in details had been the part of the fight that was indoors, and he’d been busy with the fight. He saw some of it, though, and he thinks he’d be able to rule people out even if he couldn’t be certain he had Shade, yet.

He does know his height.

It’s funny, though, because in promotional photos for the government-sponsored hero groups, and in the fight footage Aye’s been watching kind of obsessively since the lab, Shade always seems so small next to Solis. He’s taller than Aye, though.

The information he has is all important, or at least it all could be important, when he tries to figure out Shade and Solis’s true identities.

And how exactly Shade got through that window.

His phone buzzes in his hand – the tracking data? It’s a text notification, just like he’d set up, but…

Unknown Number
You’re investigating someone.
They’re investigating us.
We were very sorry to hear about your uncle’s departure. Would you like some assistance?

Aye sits back, slumps.

He has been reaching out to-

Well, to a few groups, actually. But not as himself, not as Uncle Di’s nephew, and nobody who is able to contact this phone should have that information.

He would like some assistance, but…

A school bell rings, and the people around him shuffle, slowly get up, start to depart.

Aye sits and considers.

This is out of his control; they know who he is.

It’s possible he jumped into this too fast.

Chapter Text

The tracking data finally, finally came in, sure, but Aye hasn’t gone through it yet – besides, whatever has been disrupting the tracker seems to have still been operational, or at least nearby, perhaps, when the data came in, so he’s not convinced he has all of it.

Luckily, his other lead, the anonymous texter who says they are indebted to the Children of Memory but still want his help investigating it… they’ve  given him something useful.

Maybe useful.

Something he can distract himself with, anyway, which is similar enough.

Well- no, it’s not a distraction at all, it’s an investigation of the same thing he would want a distraction from – his hand heats warningly and he lets go of the steering wheel with the ease of much practice, before it can start steaming. So, it’s not a distraction, it’s just an unlikely-to-necessarily-turn-anything-up investigation.

Anyway.

He’s in costume even though he doesn’t have plans to make it an appearance; Flare is starting to be recognisable, and it seems like a good idea to keep on that trend, because Solis knows something and Shade can lead him there, and because when he does know what exactly happened to his uncle-

It’ll be good to have an audience, is the thing.

So he’s in a bulky jumpsuit when he ditches his car and he’s in his costume when he ditches the jumpsuit.

The lab he’s been pointed towards, according to his anonymous texter, is one his uncle spent very little time at, but which is important to Children of Memory and which Uncle Di might have known the secrets of – whatever those may be. He’s been able to verify the connection to Children of Memory, on his own and without the knowledge of the texter, and in all he’s pretty sure he’s not walking into a trap.

But.

He shakes his head and looks ahead and, uncinematic as it is, enters through an ordinary side door.

It might technically be the front door, actually, because this isn’t some grand building with a main entrance – it’s a tiny one, here, basically squeezed between two others – but the entrance feels like a side one because it feels kind of seedy and unofficial, right next to a door that’s opening into a loud bar, music and shouting spilling out of it.

No drunks stumble out to challenge a now-recognisable supervillain – he sighs in relief once the door is closed behind him.

With all the practice searching through his uncle’s tracks, Aye is no longer that tiny, secret bit of intimidated by the dark – even when the dark is true, even when there’s as little heat for him to see by as there is light for everyone, which is what this building is like. He keeps to walls and walks with confidence and recites to himself, three floors up and turn left, three floors up and turn left, then the door without a handle, then the door without a handle, and it’s a little singsong-y, but it would be very embarrassing to have to come back because he forgot.

When he was verifying, yesterday, the connection to the Children of Memory, that secret name from Uncle Di’s diary, he’d been more surprised than he should have been by the name attached to the business registry, but…

P’Golf isn’t a scientist. Or a superhero.

Or a supervillain, Aye thinks in his orange not-a-leotard.

They’re his uncle’s friend, he thought, but then maybe all Uncle Di’s friendships were- shit, where was he-

Three floors up and turn-

Okay, yeah, he’s fine.

And this door has a handle, but the next one-

It takes a little bit of fingernail action as well as his lockpicking skills, but whatever, nobody’s watching.

He’s thinking of it as a laboratory because that’s what they called it, and what it seems to be registered as, but there’s not much floorspace actually dedicated to anything that looks like the science labs in his school – one room, that’s all, and the rest are store-rooms, offices, one room that has three shabby chairs and a long-discarded, half-full mug. Mostly offices.

That’s better, though, because the offices are where he might actually find anything useful.

Paper – that’s what he needs.

Well, there are computers, but he doesn’t think they’d have this many rooms filled with drawers if they were going to keep everything on there. Probably it’s to make the information harder to search.

He doesn’t need evidence of anything in particular, just a clue…

Aye’s going to take a photo of the first, last, and one random document in every drawer he manages to open before the sun comes up. It’s a quick decision.

He’s been making a lot of those lately.

But he shakes that off and gets to work, and manages not to be too bored for the first seven drawers.

Pick the lock, open the cabinet, open the drawer.

Paper one, paper two, paper three.

Replace everything where it was.

Next one.

Pick the lock, open the cabinet…

It keeps going.

He wonders why they picked this lab, of all of the places, or why they picked this cover for it. There’s something kind of morbid about it, something that’s scratching at him.

Skin cancer.

It’s an odd subject, to be related to any of this – he can’t think of any superheroes who might-

He snorts.

Solis. Aye’s always thought of his own powers as being like a lighter, entirely about small fires that can grow, but Solis’s name shows what he thinks of his, the self-aggrandising implications of the sun all out there for the world to see. Put like that, the apparent purpose of this laboratory seems very appropriate.

It cheers him up.

The task is boring, but he fixes his mind on the moment of realisation, when Solis took his fire and kept his fire, and he feels winded from the memory of it… and something of the memory of Shade getting the jump on him, too, feels like that.

He got away from Shade, though, and someone picked or designed this place as a joke at Solis’s expense, he decides, and it makes him smirk

The smirk fades, though, when he looks up.

When his eyes catch on some heat, moving where there should be none.

His blood runs cold – he’s sitting on the ground, next to the bottom drawer in this set, and he’s let himself get comfortable and-

Oh fuck, his mask.

He pulls it back down from his forehead and replaces the paper as lightly as he can, while staring through the wall at the figure of a person who should not be here.

Tall.

Thin.

Approaching his position.

The door, he closed it behind him but it’s not locked, and he hears and watches as the figure tries one door, moves the handle, and moves on, because it’s not locked-

Watches as it tries another.

He’s only two more away.

Should Aye run to the door, try to hold the handle up as if it’s locked? Maybe he could lock himself in fast enough that-

The figure is here.

He closes the drawer and secures his phone.

The door swings open.

Aye tilts his head back, reaches inside himself to feel that his fire is actually back, not stolen forever like in that nightma-

He tilts his head back and is confident.

Then he looks and is… something else.

Not unconfident, not like the lanky and looming boy standing before him had seemed, when claiming that his boss was a good guy, or something, and Aye grins at the memory. Tries to make the grin a hard one.

“Who goes there,” calls Shade.

Cute, Aye thinks, and wonders if the kid heroes all get their training from old-timey movies.

Shade is looking around, or at least turning his head, and he has a flashlight that’s attached all dorkily to the utility belt Aye never noticed on that all-black costume until he was really close to it- but that’s not the point, the point is the light, swinging towards him.

Before it can reach him, he steps forwards, ignites one hand, and gives Shade a lazy salute of greeting.

He jumps.

Cute.

But out loud he, in an insinuating, flirty kind of way, says, “You couldn’t stay away from me, Khun Shade? I’m flattered.”

Shade’s jaw, all that’s really visible of him right now, sets.

“What are your plans, here, Flare-“ and maybe he’s only thinking of Shade’s awkward little defence of Solis’s good name, but it sounds very unsure, to Aye.

It might also be the way Shade’s eyes are fixed on Aye’s legs, giving him that impression. He looks very taken-aback by how bare they are, or perhaps how orange his tiny shorts are.

He’s staring even as he asks it, actually.

Unfortunately, it is the right question, and one that Shade’s dark eyes, flickering over the drawers, indicate he suspects the right answer to – Aye is here for information.

Nothing for it; Aye goes on the offensive.

“I’m a regular volunteer for the AFC Charitable board,” fuck, no, AFC Limited is the shell corporation, not the charitable board, he can’t remember, “I’m doing some late night filing. Why are you here?”

“What,” Shade asks.

That’s fair.

It’s obviously bullshit.

“Why are you here, Khun Shade, when you work for a government funded… hero… and you don’t have any justification I can see, no warrant-“

“-Master Solis doesn’t need a warrant,” Shade interrupts. “And you’re a supervillain, not a volunteer. Stop playing with me. Why are you here?”

He laughs, delighted, and says, “Supervillain? You don’t need to flirt, Shade-“

Shade suddenly goes an odd colour.

No, that’s wrong, all the colour drops out of him, he’s only visible as heat, what-

Right, of course, Shade – invisibility.

It’s just weird in the darkness, that’s why it took him a minute, he’s not distracted.

Neither is Shade, who appears to be slowly picking a very silent path to a nearer corner of the room. Aye watches.

He seems to settle into a proper fighting stance, all careful, even though there is still a cabinet half-between them, and Aye asks, “Which martial arts have you trained in?”

Shade’s gaze must flick to him, because he goes perfectly still – registering, of course, that Aye is looking exactly at him.

He waves that illuminated hand again.

The fire flickers in Shade’s wide eyes, and Aye’s smile gains some teeth.

He lets the fire in his hand die.

“Your boss should need a warrant, by the way,” he tells him, raising his voice a little so Shade can hear him walking towards the still-ajar door.

Aye isn’t interested in getting thrown into any metal cabinets today.

He backs out of the door and pulls it closed, not so much to slow Shade down as to annoy him, and backs up along the corridor. One long space, but there are turns at each end and one miserable-looking window, on the far end from the turn that leads to the exit.

The door opens and Shade bursts out of it, saying, “No, it was decided that because we’re superheroes-“

“-You’re cops, and cops need a- hey!” and he ducks to the side as Shade charges at him.

He throws a tiny ball of flame into Shade’s shoulder.

It flickers out like nothing, but Shade spends a crucial second blinking – Aye, now on his other side, no longer with Shade between him and his chosen exit, throws four more in quick succession, backing off with each one.

“I’m not a cop,” Shade says, really annoyed now.

Probably that’s the balls of flame.

“Are,” Aye says back, channelling the most annoying toddler cousin he can think of, “So where’s your warrant,” and Shade does something different then, twists somehow-

This is his shadow-walking, and it’s fascinating to see him warp into a small space, twist so he’s the size of Aye’s shadow and in the space between him and the wall, Aye watches as his heat seems to grow, it’s like he’s a gas stove where the dial is turning steadily, but the snaky, vibrant form is, he knows, fast-

Aye doesn’t think, he just throws all the flame he has, lights up the whole place, forces Shade out-

He can’t shadow-walk if there’s no shadow, that’s what people online believe.

“Ow,” comes a pained and startlingly high-pitched complaint. Then, a winded whisper of, “Fuck.”

Aye winces.

Shade is crumpled on the ground, clutching his stomach, right by the still-open door he’d emerged from.

He didn’t mean to hurt him badly, just cut off whatever attack-

Then he whimpers, and Aye finds himself stupidly, hand outstretched and crouching, approaching the downed hero, starts with, “Shit, that looked like it-“

“-Back off,” and Aye looks up to see-

Solis.

Eyes on Aye.

He can’t make it to the stairs, not with Solis fucking on them, and he might not be able to outrun Solis but if he gives a shit about his sidekick maybe he’ll stop-

No, his eyes are on Aye.

And-

The door.

He has almost no reserves of flame left, that final burst of light having drained him, but he closes his eyes and takes a deep breath as Solis also starts to glow, at the end of the hallway.

Solis sent Shade here for a reason.

Aye silently apologises to his texting hopefully-friends, to P’Golf as well, just in case, and then he opens his eyes.

Shoots a stream of flame directly at all those files.

Turns.

Runs.

Nobody follows him.

As he catches his breath, far away from the lab, he wonders if Shade noticed that his boss- no, master, he keeps calling him his master – didn’t look twice at his pain.

He was focused on the files.

Because his anonymous contacts are right, there’s a link here, Solis reacting to Aye’s, Flare’s oblique accusation and P’Golf and the Children of Memory, Solis is, must be at the centre of all this. He doesn’t know everything about the Children of Memory, he’s not on the same side as them, so he was focused on the files.

So is Aye; his phone feels heavy, when he retrieves it from the secure inner pocket, stripping off his costume and throwing it into a bag, retrieved from one of the hiding spots. He turns it on.

Pulls a normal t-shirt over his head.

Old, slightly too-small jeans, because his mae thinks she already threw them out, are halfway up his legs when his phone finishes turning on and the vibrations start. He pulls the pants the rest of the way up and says a silent prayer that none of them are from his panicked mae.

He can handle anything else but her, worried and pressing for answers.

An image, vivid and gutting, of Shade whimpering, ignored and in pain on the ground between Aye and the man he calls master, flashes into his mind.

Pretty much anything else, then.

Chapter Text

“The word on the street is that Terrex is a teammate, or perhaps colleague, of the villain Flare,” a reporter says, and Aye jumps.

He’s only got the news on because the house feels quiet when he’s home alone, but now he turns up the volume and fixes his eyes on the screen; in the corner, a fight plays out between the Solis duo and a large, hard-to-make-out… dinosaur?

Yeah, that’s a T-rex, huh, but the tail is kind of weird-looking.

Solis and Shade work together, Aye watching, the reporter summarising the blows-

“This is the kind of teamwork that makes this duo such a pillar of strength,” she says, and Aye huffs through his nose, “Really, really nice stuff.”

As the fight comes to an end, she circles back to, “The villain emerged in the middle of one of Solis’s regular patrols – the government spokesman has alleged that the Sun Hero is being targeted by yet another villain. The fourth such incident in the past month-“ and that’s Aye, on the screen, all in orange and smiling with more confidence than he was actually feeling.

Then there’s another face – that old lady who kept making multiples of Shade that tried to punch him, who the screen labels Clonemistress – another, this one just in a labcoat and labelled Tin-Opener, and Aye doesn’t remember that one at all.

Who the fuck, he wonders, would call themself Tin Opener.

“In other heroic news, the city’s little brother Hero Kid successfully-“ cuts off, as Aye changes the channel.

He doesn’t, in fact, have any connection to those people. Aye’s been bothering Solis and Shade on their patrols, it’s true, dropping in and shooting fire at the back of Shade’s head then fleeing, but that’s all, he hasn’t even really talked to Shade since- he swallows, remembering the way Shade crumpled there, on the ground.

The way Solis didn’t even look.

He clenches his hands into fists about it even now, but he hasn’t done anything to them, really, since then.

Is someone else targeting Solis and Shade?

“Unacceptable,” Teacher Waree pronounces, and Aye looks at his hands. “This is the third time, Ayan.”

“I’m sorry,” he tells her.

She says, “Is it night classes?” softening her voice.

Ayan shakes his head and repeats, “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again, teacher.”

“You can’t sleep in class, Ayan, you’re one of the brightest…”

It was decided because we’re superheroes- Aye pushes his egg around his plate with a spoon. Shade doesn’t name the decision as Solis’s or the government’s or the media’s or anyone’s, anyone at all, and Aye can’t stop thinking about it.

To be so absolutely sure – it’s right, it was decided – he can’t wrap his mind around thinking that way.

He’s not so sure about anything, even things he’s certain of.

Aye’s mission is the only thing he can do, but-

Shade whimpering on the ground, people on the news saying the new villain Flare, so much of it trips him up and makes him-

“Aye,” his mother says, nearly a bark.

He looks up at her.

There’s worry in the lines of her face.

He scoops up half the egg, puts it in his mouth, and smiles.

The worry doesn’t go away.

Aye’s map isn’t pretty.

His tracker data is plotted on three different maps, actually, incriminating but necessary as he stares over them, trying desperately to make it all work in his head.

He thinks – maybe, maybe – he knows what corner Solis and Shade make their base in. South of the city, there’s a spot that the tracker data definitely seems to circle, and it’s far enough from their regular patrols that nobody who wasn’t tracking them would expect them to make their base there, which as far as Aye’s concerned is very nearly proof.

It would be stupid to go.

The necklace is burned and warped and Uncle Di’s leg was nearly charcoal, and the money behind them has to provide them with a serious level of protection, something that would probably do worse if Aye just attacked it, but he knows where.

Probably.

That was a decision made nearly as soon as he knew where, actually. It burned, because it makes the tracker feel stupid, feel pointless, but as soon as he had it Aye was struck with the certainty that if he followed that trail, he’d die too.

But now, there have been three different visits to another building.

Well, circling another building, almost – it seems as though they’re being as cautious as him, investigating it, and Aye laughs to himself at the thought that Shade might be worried about warrants, now.

The thought that his words might actually have had an effect.

Me
Does it have anything belonging to the children?

WON’T ADMIT TO HAVING A NAME
This is one of the CoM’s training centres.
No important data there, it’s only nominally a lab, the CoM won’t defend it themselves.
They also believe that the “hero” is investigating that one – there’s a file on it.

Aye stares at the themselves until it’s burned into his eyes; he doesn’t believe it, is the thing.

Oh, that the Children of Memory aren’t worried about Solis and Shade finding anything important there, he believes that. That they, therefore, won’t bother defending it, he believes that too.

No, Aye doesn’t believe his contact is actually at all separate from the organisation.

He might be paranoid, but-

It doesn’t matter either way, to his investigation, is the thing.

Whoever they are, his contact has gift-wrapped Aye a meeting- no, a confrontation with Solis and Shade, and at this point, he’s been frustrated with his own cowardice for fucking weeks.

If Shade has been there, like the tracker says, three separate times, there’s a good chance he’ll go back. A Children of Memory one – Aye verified it too, and this trail was, if anything, easier to follow – must seem connected to Aye, at this point. Shade might even be scouting it out for Flare, trying to find him or something.

He’d hate to disappoint.

It’s the fifth night he’s waiting – Teacher Waree has actually stopped calling him aside for falling asleep in class, now! – and Aye is really starting to wonder if the tracker’s been compromised.

He’s humming to himself, tapping his fingernails on the walls, when-

There’s someone approaching.

Someone whose heat signature twists and bends through an impossibly small space to enter – Aye nearly giggles.

“Mr Shade!” he calls out.

Shade, who is approaching a filing cabinet like he wants to copy Aye, copy Flare – he turns around slowly, looking weird to Aye’s mixed senses.

Invisible if you can only perceive light, again.

“Flare,” Shade says, sounding resigned and quiet.

Aww, and there was Aye, thinking he wanted to meet – but Aye has put on his armour as Shade, and intimidating the heroes is an always-good, so he grins. Poor Shade.

Walks up to him, stalking like a cat, and raises a hand in mock-threat; Shade actually steps back in horror.

Cute.

When Aye laughs, Shade’s face becomes perceivably hotter, it actually – he laughs at his own thought, flares hotter.

He coos, “Aww. Blushing?”

Shade pretends not to hear him, and demands, “Why are you breaking in here?”

“Ha!” Aye laughs.

It’s true, to be fair, that the tracker has never been inside the building before – maybe their investigation wasn’t just cautious at all, maybe they were setting up a fucking sting so they’d have an excuse to enter, but Shade wanted to be here too, set the whole thing up.

“I’m breaking in?” he asks, incredulous at the nerve, “What about you, hero?”

“I am a hero,” says Shade, sounding far more uncertain than he must mean to, voice all trembly, making Aye’s stupid heart pang, “The lab asked for monitoring in case of villainy.”

That’s for sure not true – unless Aye counts his probably-one-of-them contact, and Solis and Shade as the villainy, of course, but that’s a stretch even for him. Either way, they didn’t ask Shade.

“Liar,” he whispers to the still-invisible, still cowering sidekick in front of him.

Shade seems frozen; he’s cradled, or maybe caged, between Aye and the filing cabinet Shade wanted to break into, and his face is still hot, so hot, it’s like bright red in not-quite-Aye’s-eyes.

“What makes you think I’m a liar,” Shade trembles at him, “Are you working with the lab?”

He laughs again.

It’s at the partial confession that Shade isn’t working with the lab, but it’s also at the fact that Aye doesn’t know how to answer him; is he here on the Children of Memory’s orders?

“Maybe the lab works for me,” he deflects, “You don’t know – you’ve broken in. Stealing information, Superman?”

“They’ve refused to report results to the government,” Shade tells him, and Aye almost holds his breath as he listens despite himself – oh, Shade is biased, but there’s money behind him, and Aye wants to know anything he can about the Children of Memory, “Why would they, if they’re not hiding-“

“-They aren’t required to do that, Shade,” Aye prods.

It’s no good if Shade ends up on a rant about, like, the existence of private scientific institutions, he wants to know when the Children were asked to report results.

Disappointingly, Shade’s next words are, “But what are they hiding?”

Shade doesn’t know more than Aye.

Ugh. Shade and his talk of not needing a warrant, last time, setting Aye up to come here this time.

“We have a right,” Aye says, tired, annoyed at him and at them, meaning the words for both groups because fuck it, the Children are probably listening, “To privacy and against government interference, and scientific research especially needs to be free of that interference, it’s about truth and-“

“-Nobody wants to interfere!” Shade bursts out, distressed. “Not in anything that isn’t wrong. Is the lab not doing anything wrong?”

He sucks his own teeth.

Shade’s so naïve.

It’s cute.

Aggravating.

And besides, he thinks about the last lab, more than a month ago, thinks about Solis and that filing cabinet and the look on his face when Flare first revealed himself, and he says, “Oh, Shade. Do you really believe that your boss doesn’t want to interfere?”

Shade shudders into visibility.

He’s all masked, still, and his face is hot enough that the details are pretty hard to discern, but that must be a show of how much he doesn’t want to think about Aye’s question, and it makes Aye sad.

So Aye raises a hand, gentle, to Shade’s cheek, despite himself.

He can feel Shade trembling.

“There you are,” he tells him, fondness and worry leaking into it, “Forgot to stay invisible, Shade.”

He strokes Shade’s face with his fingers and wonders if he’ll admit it, that Solis has his own interests and his own plans; wonders who, out of Solis and Flare, Shade is more afraid of.

Then, sudden, bewildering, Shade bursts forwards, Aye raises his hands to defend-

Aye is being kissed.

Shade’s lips are dry on his, and his mouth is a little parted – the kiss is harsh, teeth clanking together, and Aye gasps into the sensation.

“Shade,” he says, wondering.

He can see Shade’s eyes, behind the mask, shimmering and wide and terrified, and his heart is beating hard and he thinks stupid, I’m stupid. Lost.

Goes up on tiptoes, and kisses Shade again, softer.

There are tears against his own face.

Shade pushes him away, then, and it would be a hard push except Aye’s fought Shade and he knows that it’s not even as strong as he’d use for a testing blow – Aye lets him, though, backs off with his hands in the air.

There’s a pause, silent, crackling with it.

“How did you end up with Solis, anyway?” Aye asks, quiet, sitting down cross-legged on the floor.

Shade mirrors him without seeming to mean to.

Aye adds, “Does he have something on you?” because there’s all that fear on one side, all that disregard on the other, and it’s enough to make him wonder.

“No, my parents-“ and Shade cuts himself off.

“He’s your dad?” Aye asks.

Shade scoffs, “No.”

“Then what-“

“-I don’t want to tell you.”

It seems like a lie.

Aye likes him, is the problem. The main one.

“Does anyone know who you are?” he asks, meaning the boy behind the mask – meaning more than that.

The answer should be yes, if Solis knows or did something to Shade’s parents, but he’s not surprised that Shade hears the question underneath and shakes his head, asks, “Does anyone know you?”

He smiles, and for a moment thinks of taking the mask off.

“Did you ever meet someone called-“

An alarm wails – red lights flare – was it on purpose?

Aye has to flee.