Chapter Text
Phil Lester likes to walk through the middle of the street at one in the morning. He is always looking up, watching the sky lighten and the beautiful stars slowly fade. People worry about him sometimes. He can hear people whisper about him on the street, bend down to ask his parents in a low voice if he's "okay".
Well, he's fine. In a sense.
He's completely normal and ordinary.
But that just so happens to be the problem.
You see, on these late night walks of his, stars aren't the only things he can see shooting across the sky. Women and men clad in generic spandex suits and capes fly too. Phil can be careful not to bump into a streetlight or a traffic cone, but he could most certainly bump into someone who can't be seen by the human eye. Until they shimmer into view to tell him off, of course. Because everyone in Stone Line City is extraordinary. Everyone has super powers, everyone except Phil. Phil's just extra ordinary. Even in his own home he's taunted by his family's power. His father is a telekinetic, mixing cake batter and washing floors with his mind. His mother is an omniscient, incredibly knowledgable. She can recite whole novels. His older brother is a flyte, one of the rarer superpowers. Of course, the whole family is incredibly proud of James, who is going to use his abilities to become an officer. He goes into the field next week, and family members keep dropping by to tell him how amazing he is. Phil usually stays in his room at these times.
At first, people just thought he was a late bloomer. Some kids got their powers on the second day of their lives, shooting sparks from their crib, and some got them on the fifth year of their life, running downstairs excitedly as they realize that they just healed their own skinned knee. Phil is seventeen now, and he knows his powers aren't coming. At first his family still tried to engage him in activities, but over time he just stop trying to fit in with the rest of the world.
Phil prefers walking.
Walking and watching the news and lying in bed, eyes screwed shut, getting lost in alternate realities he creates in his mind, realities where he's just like everybody else, where the word "ordinary" doesn't haunt him like a ghost.
His family is always downstairs, eating together, chatting to each other, making small talk about the days work.
When they were younger, they would play outside. His father would make objects hover fly in the air, sending them this way and that for James to follow and catch. His mom would smile and recite stats from her chair, promising her oldest son that one day his name would be written down in the record books.
Phil would watch from inside, his face pressed against the glass, right hand loosely gripping a teddy bear, thinking to himself that as soon as he got his powers too he could play outside. He would spend hours imagining what he would be able to do, what power he would have. How cruel and twisted the world is. Now, Phil sits in his bedroom watching television.
The news, as of late, is especially grim. Phil's family, like most, lives in the suburbs of Stone Line, about a half hour drive away from the city, where the attacks have been happening.
In a world where anyone can become a superhero, anyone can also become a villain. And while there has always been the occasional robbery, or fire scare, they would always be unorganized, the work of some half-assed criminal who nobody bothered to care about besides the local police force.
Lately, everything had become ten times as worrisome. Mass murders repeatedly occurred at the heart of the city, and while everybody knew who was causing them, the super villain had not been caught. He was too cunning even for the federal forces. He was a beacon of raw power, a chaotic evil.
Lynx.
His powers are so rare, so dangerous, that he is the only documented person in history to possess them.
Lynx is a shade. He can control shadows, make them come to life in the form of chaotic gray mist.
Imagine being killed by your own shadow. Now imagine watching everyone around you slowly meeting the same fate.
And after killing these harmless civilians, Lynx flees so quickly that officers could never find him.
More and more often these killings were happening, until they became a morbid routine. Phil had heard his family have many a worried conversation about them. The city was paranoid, in shock. The officers patrolled the streets, often the first ones to die. People had been deserting the force, making wild claims to have spotted Lynx. No funerals were held for the dead, their bodies shipped off to who knows where, leaving throngs of broken hearted loved ones in their wake.
Phil gets out of bed at one in the morning, climbing out through his window and onto the roof, a technique he's mastered through the years. If he was like all the other kids his age, he would be sneaking out to go to parties every night instead of sneaking out to walk. Nobody wanted to be his friend, though. They weren't sure if they could, they weren't sure how they could interact with someone so incredibly different. Phil tried not to hold it against them, but on these early morning lonely walks, he sometimes found it hard.
He doesn't walk much this morning, only a couple of blocks. He sits down on the pavement and leans back against a telephone pole, looking up at the pitch black sky. Stars twinkle and gleam in the night, giving off a radiant light. Phil finds one off to the side that's less bright than all the rest. Irrational tears start rolling down his face, and he wipes them on his jacket.
"What a fucking mess I am," he thinks to himself, "Connecting with a star."
And with that, he gets up, walks home in the dark, pulls himself up on his roof, and grabs a blanket. The sunrise doesn't turn the sky pretty colors, it just slowly brightens until the stars disappear and the sky looks light gray. A corner of the sun peaks out from behind the skyscrapers in the distance, and Phil slides the window shut, gets in bed, and rolls over.
He wakes up after a couple hours to a repetitive knock on his door. He opens it, bleary-eyed, to find his mother, standing in a casual dress with her arms crossed.
"Phillip!"
"Mum? What's going on..."
"We have guests coming over in half an hour to see your brother. Please just come downstairs and look decent for ten minutes. And change out of those pajamas!"
"Okay, mum."
"Thank you, Phil."
They talk like awkward acquaintances, not like a mother and her son. Of course all the neighbors are going to come by to wish James well at his job. Phil hates these things the most, because people think that he can't hear them try to subtly ask his parents whats wrong with him, and his parents don't think he notices the embarrassed looks on their faces as they try to explain.
He stands in the kitchen, holding an apple in one hand and watching James. James, who gets all the attention and all the love. The neighbors are all questioning him about his degree, about what his job will be like, about his friends at uni. Of *course* James is also amazing at small talk and all social interaction. Of course mom and dad would be looking over with proud smiles on their faces, not noticing their younger son leave the house for the second time that day.
They've tried to talk to him about these walks of his, but they don't know how to talk to their youngest son. They like to avoid him, putting it down to him being a moody teenager. Phil wishes he had problems as simple as those, problems that you grow out of, that you learn to laugh about.
His problems are more of the "never-grew-into-them" variety. Which is quite taxing to explain to prying strangers. Which is why Phil decides to take a long walk on this crisp, cool morning.
He pops the collar of his jacket to protect his neck, and he pulls his hands into the sleeves, creating little paws with his hand. As he walks, he loses track of time, losing himself in his own mind as he dreams up scenarios in which he has powers, rare powers that nobody has ever seen before. Kid stuff, really. But Phil can't help himself. It's better to be lost in fantasy than to be perpetually stuck in reality. He walks for hours, picking weeds on the side of the street and forming them into a bouquet, until the green strips next to the road become gradually smaller and smaller until they disappear altogether.
Phil finds himself in the city. He's always secretly loved coming here. There's something so freeing about walking through crowds of strangers that won't remember your face for two seconds after they pass you. Nobody here knows Phil as "ordinary". For all they know, he's amazingly powerful. He smiles at the thought.
The city is abuzz, people rushing this way and that, talking to others, talking on their phone, talking to themselves, and in rare cases, not talking at all. Phil's eyes glance over everything with a smile. Something about tall metal boxes and minimal trees makes Phil happy, apparently. He walks deeper into the city, not caring about how long it will take to get home. His parents won't worry, in fact they'll be glad to have him gone for James's party. He pauses under a tree and looks up at the sun in the sky.
"I saw you when you were just rising," Phil whispers, like he's telling a secret.
The clouds move slowly across the sky, puffy and white and traveling in bunches. Phil leans against the trunk of the tree, closing his eyes and breathing in the pocket of peace in the middle of the city.
He walks almost with his eyes closed, making decisions about where to go based on raw instinct every time he gets to a crossroad. He may be lost, but he has all day to get home.
He finds himself darting down a surprisingly clean alley, so he pauses to take a breath by a spray painted wall. Names upon names upon names are printed in various obnoxiously large fonts, and Phil takes a pencil and writes his name, very small, at the bottom of the wall. Maybe someday, someone will notice it and think, even for a split second, about him. The thought of that makes him happy. He leans back against the concrete wall, pulling his jacket closer around him. "It's chilly today," he thinks, and that's the last thing he remembers thinking before absolute chaos rings out.
The first thing he hears are the screams.
Then they're layered by an announcers voice, pleading with everybody to stay calm.
Phil's eyes widen in fear, he rushes to the end of the alley and peeks around the corner only to have his creeping suspicions confirmed.
Lynx.
Phil freezes for half a second, paralyzed in fear, then darts back down the alley and crouches down by the wall, breathing hard and hoping to go unseen. He feels like he's been sitting for hours and hours, listening to the loudspeaker and the screams and the officers shouting at each other, though in reality it's probably only been minutes.
"He's gone, He's gone!"
"Well he has to have gone somewhere, you fools! Go! Faster! We have to find him, gentlemen!"
Phil looks up tentatively, his heartbeat throbbing in his head. He stands up slowly. "Maybe," he thinks, "maybe it's over."
And that's when someone runs into him. He turns around slowly and sees a face that he's only ever seen through a television screen.
Lynx stands in front of him.
They stand there, staring at each other for a few seconds that feel like they last an eternity. Finally the villain breaks the silence.
"Well shit," Lynx says with a smirk, "you've caught me, haven't you?"
Phil gulps.
"We can't have that. You'll have to come with me."
And with that, the most notorious super villain in history has a gloved hand over Phil's gaping mouth. He inhales sharply in surprise, realizing too late that he's breathing in chemicals. Then his eyelashes flutter closed and he drops into a deep sleep.
When he returns to consciousness, Phil doesn't open his eyes. He can still smell remnants of whatever sleep serum was used, making him a bit drowsy, but he still tries to hear what's going on around him.
"Who the hell is this, Howell?"
"Some guy, caught me running out. Couldn't risk him screaming, just gave him some serum."
"Aw, come on man. You know you could have done something way easier. You just wanted to keep him, didn't you?!"
"Shut up, Xavi."
"Didn't you!! Oh damn, the Lynx has a cruuuuush!"
"Xavi! I don't, alright? Look at him!"
"Not my type, but I don't know what you're into..."
"Just put him in the spare room before he wakes up. Lock the door. We shouldn't let him out until we have time to... explain some things."
"If you wanna seduce him, you might not want to lock him in the spare, Howell."
"For the last time, I-"
"Just saying, just saying. Relax, man, I'll triple lock the door if you want me to."
Phil tries to quiet the butterflies swarming around in his stomach. Where the hell was he? Who the hell was he with? Would his family be worried about him? ... Would they even realize he's gone?
The cot he's lying on jolts forward in a sudden movement, making Phil jump in surprise. His arm shoots up and his eyes pop open almost comically wide. There is silence for a couple of seconds.
"Shiiiiiiit..."
"Howell? Your boy's awake!"
"Are you trying to be funny, Xavi? Because that's not funny!"
"No, man, I'm being serious! Get in here!"
Phil scans the room, surprised by how normal his surroundings are in the midst of all this chaos. There's a rug on the floor, a fireplace in the corner, half worn sofas and chairs around the perimeter of the room. Just like any normal living room, except for the masks and mixes and weapons strewn across the bookshelves and coffee tables.
And of course, the foreboding villain standing in the doorway.
The Lynx does not have a mask or gloves or spandex black pants on. He's wearing black skinny jeans and a long sleeved white shirt with a band name inscribed across the front. His hair is slightly curly at the ends, and it frames his face in a curtain. His eyes are mean, narrowed in disgust as he stares at Phil.
Phil tries to speak, half a billion questions crowding his mind.
"Where have you taken me?! Why did you-"
"Look, mate, you're gonna have to shut up a second. Sleep some more. We have a room for you. When you wake up, then I'll answer your questions."
"I've slept enough! I want to know where I am, I need to-"
"I know, I know, the family's worried, you're missing, the whole shebang. We have a burner phone you can use later."
"That's- uh, I'm not worried about my family. I just want to know why the hell you kidnapped me!"
The Lynx laughs. It looks weird on his face, his eyes crinkling up in the corners and his mouth opening wide in an exaggerated smile.
"Because, you would have told the whole city my best escape route! We can't have that, now can we."
"Well then, where are we now?"
"Like I said, sleep, then I'll talk to you about whatever you want. Just don't make any noise or try to call for help, okay? Don't be stupid, and nothing bad will happen to you."
"What do you mean, nothing bad?!"
"Wheel him out, Xavi."
And Phil is rapidly moving down a hall and into a door. The door is shut behind him, and a telltale click tells him it's locked as well.
This room is also scarily normal. The lights are slightly dim, making everything look cozy. There's a bed in the corner, with a table beside it. There's a fuzzy rug on the ground, a shelf in the corner with a couple of picture frames on it. Phil gets up from the cot and takes look around. The walls are bare, nails hanging off some of them where Phil presumes things used to be hanging. He makes his way over to the dresser, looking at the pictures that are stacked in the back right corner.
There are five pictures. The first one looks old, the photo is slightly faded. It shows a little boy sitting on a wooden floor, face frozen in laughter, waving a toy truck around in his hands.
The second one shows the same boy, slightly older, holding an older boys hand. They're standing in front of a concrete block, presumably a school. The older boy is smiling big, and he seems to be glowing. He must be a dynamo, Phil thinks. He had met a couple of dynamos before, those able to expel energy beams. The little boy in the picture seems scared, a little sad. Phil recognizes that feeling.
The third one seems to be a family portrait. Two beaming parents stand, lovingly gripping a boy's shoulders, who Phil recognizes as the older one from the second picture. It's signed, "To Sandy-- You're the light of our lives!! We love you, son. Wishing you the best of luck at university. Love, mum and dad."
Phil's eyes scan the photo again and notices another boy, standing in the background, slightly blurred. He's slumped, looking tired and weak. He stares over at the parents and son longingly. He must be the little boy. The younger son. Something looks out of place, and finally Phil realizes that the younger son doesn't have a shadow.
Oh. So this isn't just any family. The younger son is Lynx. Despite himself, Phil feels sorry for the villain. He knows the feeling of being forgotten, feeling less.
The fourth photo is taken from the front porch of a house. On the street, a boy in a baseball cap with greek letters on it is getting into a car. His hand is raised in a wave, a smile takes up his whole face. His mother has a hand on his shoulder, kissing his cheek, his father is clapping him on the back. The younger boy, Lynx, is nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he is taking the picture, capturing the lovely family scene that he is not part of.
The last picture is of the same two boys, but they are little again. The older boy is holding both the younger boy's hands, smiling, literally glowing. The younger boy looks entranced, his mouth in an "o" shape, his eyes wide in wonder. There's stuff written on this one too, cramped, messy handwriting that's almost unreadable.
It says, "I'm sorry, Sandy."
Phil wonders about the story that these photos tell. He recognizes the facial expressions of the younger boy, because he's worn them himself. He understands what it's like to be the blurry boy in the back of the happy family photo. In fact, that's a damn good metaphor for his life. And just as he begins to put the photos down, a voice shakes him out of his thoughts.
"Nosey, huh?"
Phil turns around to see Lynx once again standing in the doorway. He instinctively backs up against the wall, his heartbeat quickening.
"L-Lynx."
"My name is Dan, actually. I would much prefer you call me that."
Phil lets out a squeak. He could talk to him earlier, but only because he was drowsy and confused. Now that his mind is clear, he can register that he should, by all means, be absolutely terrified of the boy in black skinny jeans. He's tall, foreboding... Not to mention a mass murderer.
As if he can read Phil's thoughts, Lynx responds with a half-hearted laugh.
"If I was out to kill you, I would have done it by now. I've had a thousand opportunities, so why wait until now?"
"Because you wanted to see me die?!" Phil expels words without really pausing to think.
"Now, really. Do you think I'm that cruel?"
"...Yes," Phil responds, mind flashing to the thousands of reports he's seen on TV about that very subject.
Dan's eyes soften, looking almost sad. His voice sounds gravelly when he speaks.
"I suppose you might be right. But for now, you may want to hear some answers to your questions."
Phil nods. He has a lot of questions to ask.
"Where are we?" He starts.
"I'm afraid I can't tell you that. Just know, we're far away from the city. By the way, black-hair, what's your name?"
"P-Phil."
"Okay, Phil... What else do you wanna know?"
"Why did you bring me here?"
"I told you, because you were blocking my escape."
"How long are you going to make me stay here?"
"I don't know, Phil, I don't know."
"Who else is here?"
"My friends. But you'll meet them soon enough."
"I, uh, don't really need to know anything else, I guess."
"You can call someone if you want. We have a burner phone. But you're not allowed to say anything that could give anything away."
"I don't have anyone to call," Phil replies, shrugging his shoulders.
Dan cocks his head, eyebrows raising slightly.
"Okay then. I have a question for you, Phil."
"..."
"Where did you get such beautiful eyes?"
And before Phil has time to register the question, Dan Howell, the Lynx, has gotten up and walked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. And locking it. Phil slumps down, feeling like a prisoner. A horribly confused prisoner that has committed no crime.
But something about him feels cozy when he thinks about how even super villains can have soft looking eyes.