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The city stank. Rot and decay and garbage. Even the stench of piss reached up to where Neil was perched on the roof. It gave him the easiest access to watch everything that was around him. The cleanest chance for him to know if danger was going to be coming for him or not.
A year in and he still hadn’t managed to shake any of the paranoia that was clinging to him. A year after being taken in by a hero team and joining them despite every warning that his Mother had drilled into his mind. His parents had no powers but they knew the uses of them. They knew what could be made of them. His father had wanted him for the first time in his life when Neil had started showing what he could do. His mother saved him from that fate.
From being a villain.
He didn’t feel worthy enough to be a hero. Not with the thoughts his father had poisoned into his mind. Not with the whispers in his head that told him how quickly he could kill a person or how they would look if he carved into their skin. The weight of a blade that held like a ghost against his hand. The smile that pulled at his lips beneath his mask.
His father’s smile. His father’s eyes.
His mask hid it all. Every feature, every mark of what he was. It was for his safety. A hero that hid because he was afraid. A hero that was too cowardly to risk losing everything he was slowly learning to have.
What kind of hero was he? Worthless. Pathetic. Weak. Everything his father had warned him he’d be if he tried to run. Everything his mother taught him to pretend to be. To never use his powers. To never show what he was or what he could do. It had been fine in the start, when he was eight and they were pretending to be regular people moving from place to place before anyone could come to learn them or know them. They were safe when it was like that.
As Neil grew, his powers grew with him. His body adapted for more strength, more power. He was in school to hold the appearances and in gym he would measure himself. Counting and pacing and making certain that his limbs did not move too fast. That he wouldn’t give away the speed that coursed through his veins. The power that gave him speed comparable to a myth.
It wasn’t just that he ran fast. All of him was fast. They’d learned it the hard way when he’d fainted in the middle of class. His mother had come to get him and he’d never gone back to that school. She told him his illness ruined everything they were trying to establish there. She told him he’d ruined everything of their safety she was trying to make. They left, moving to the next location and living on rations they had in their bags.
He remembered how the world had looked. How it had turned around him in spinning blurs of colors that he couldn’t track. The feeling of his mother’s hand in his hair as she pulled him along. The moments in and out of her holding his pulse point and forcing food into his mouth when he was only half awake.
They’d learned how much his powers cost. The funds that were meant to be their escape and their safety turned into feeding him and keeping him alive. He’d grown up ill and dizzy and weak because they needed to mark their appearances and the food he’d needed was too much.
He’d stopped being able to use his powers.
He’d thought it would be good for them.
His father’s people found them anyway. He’d lost his mother in the fight. He’d held her body. He’d watched her die. He’d handled her corpse to make sure she wasn’t found. He’d stood watching the burning car that held her body inside. He’d buried what was left of her on the beach and he’d thrown up.
He’d been so dizzy he could barely move. Too weak to find the will in himself to get up and he could imagine her with him still. How she would scream at him. How her fingers would feel in his hair. How she would drag him up and force him to move.
He had the power of superspeed and he’d been too slow to save her. Too slow for a bullet. Too slow to be useful to the only person he had in his life.
He’d been alone.
Until—
“Yes or no?”
Neil turned to see his partner coming to crouch beside him on the roof. The familiar black lines of the domino mask that covered perfectly hazel eyes that he could lose himself inside of for hours at a time. Short blonde hair grazed the collar of the all black uniform that fit the untouchable man beside him.
Neil didn’t even think.
“Yes.”
Cool fingers grazed the edges of his mask. They were high enough above the city that it didn’t matter. The paranoia that whispered its claws into the core of his mind fading away to nearly nothing when he was here with his partner beside him. A calm that Neil knew meant he was finally well and truly safe with the man beside him.
The mask moved away. Their lips met the moment after. Gentle pressure that soothed the memories away from the front of his mind and pulled him back to the present. When they pulled apart the mask was fixed in seconds. Neil did not move a muscle.
“Staring.”
He huffed. Andrew and his blunt edges had always been appreciated by him. He knew that many others in the country and even in their own hero team liked to judge him for it. He was called a monster on more than one occasion. One of the only ones on the team who would fight without using his powers. He said the hero work bored him. He said he was there for entertainment but there was something else. There was more to him.
More to Melder than people knew. More to Andrew Minyard hidden behind the mask that even their friends didn’t know.
“Just taking in the view.”
Andrew turned to look back over the city. Eyes scanning the streets in the distance behind the lenses of the domino. Careful to never look down. Never confirm the streets below them. Never see the thing Neil knew he feared.
“You’re an idiot.”
“You knew that. You came anyway.”
Andrew would always come for him.
He never had to be alone again. Not unless he wanted to be. The memories crept against him like vines to a rotting wall. Searching for cracks that they could use to burrow themselves inside him until his foundation was destroyed. Looking for what could shape him into something weak and damaged and—
“Speak.”
Andrew to anyone else would have sounded flat toned and bored. To Neil, he heard his concern. He heard the protection that was in that word. His partner turned to look at him again. Eyes burning into him even through the lens of the domino. He was staring at white but he knew the color that would be swirling underneath.
He forced his attention to something else.
“Your uniform is boring.” Neil watched as Andrew rocked back on his heels. Their eyes never left through their masks. “For as fashion forward as you are in our day to days, an all black uniform? Really? You have no emblem, no patterns, you look like some goth military mercenary vigilante—”
“You’re such an idiot.”
“You should get a cape or something.”
He knew how to watch the shift of the mask to tell when Andrew would raise a brow to him.
“A cape,” he repeated slowly. Like he was trying to ensure Neil knew just how stupid he was. “A cape is a liability. Only stupid people wear capes.”
Neil could feel a grin on his face. Not his fathers, his own.
“Queen wears a cape.”
“Queen is stupid, don’t make me repeat myself.”
His laugh was swallowed by the breeze around them. If he wasn’t used to looking for the smallest details, Neil would have missed the slight relaxing of Andrew’s shoulders when he heard it. They didn’t need words beyond that. They didn’t need to explain themselves. They knew each other too well to need anything else than exactly what they meant.
The night had been quiet for all of them. It was nearly time for hero tournaments to start again. For the teams from all around the nation to fight each other within their districts. To see who would become the top hero team for the next year by the end. The Fox Hole Heroes had never stood a chance for it. Always the damaged heroes. The ones that broke the rules, the ones that leaned a little too close to vigilante over hero. None of them were meant to be in this life. Damaged kids with powers that should have been executed by the system. Neil knew the stories and the reports. He’d followed heroes his whole life, even before he developed his own abilities.
He knew the team he’d allowed himself to build into a home. He knew that it was going to kill him one day, fighting as he was. No matter his mask or his uniform, his father would find him. His father would recognize his speed. His father would kill him.
He would be dead before the final tournament came, he didn’t care.
A year with the Foxes and he hadn’t shown publicly until recently. He’d been too sick, too weak, he knew how to fight but for the sake of his identity he had hidden it. He allowed them to train him and teach him, they made a uniform for him that would block against the speeds and heat and friction he needed to handle. They made a mask for him that protected his face from the air and force of his power. Full face coverage that he could completely see through. A mirror on the side the world had to face. Reflective so that the light would bounce and built to be able to withstand the heat he made when he ran.
He heard the small beep in his ear, watched in the corner of his eye how Andrew shifted and he knew that he heard it too. He tapped the piece in his ear. His gloves scraped against the edge of his mask and he wished it was Andrew’s hand there instead.
“Are you two coming back?” Dan’s familiar voice sounded through the speaker in his ear. “Coach is calling it for the night. No activity, the police can handle the rest. Everyone is home but you.”
Andre was the one who answered for them.
“Soon.”
Short and to the point and Neil rolled his eyes. The rest of the team was going to be talking about that. He could already hear Nicky and Kevin being up in arms about the clipped form of communication that was always their favorite form of it. He debated to himself bringing up what Andrew had said about Kevin’s uniform. The great and perfect Queen who wore his cape and marked himself with the chess piece when he went out into the field. Kevin was ridiculous on the best of days but he was a good hero and he would always have their back when needed. Even when Neil wanted to throttle him and the two of them would be at each other’s throats about how things should be done.
Kevin was a former Raven. A superhero group that Neil now knew was anything but. They were powerful. The champions that had always been in place and now that the Foxes were going to have to fight them in the tournaments, a lot of the team was afraid. They were training harder, patrolling for longer, but Neil knew they couldn’t stop. It wasn’t enough yet and until it was, they couldn’t stop.
He turned his head to look at his partner and found Andrew already looking back at him. With his mask, Neil knew he was looking at himself. The reflective feature of his mask that Andrew himself had designed for him. A mirror for the boy who reflected everything around him and changed his face to whatever someone else wanted to see.
“Now who’s staring?”
“What aren’t you telling me?”
Neil frowned. It had been a long day. A long few weeks, if he was being honest. They had all been watched by the media and Neil had done his best to avoid the cameras but they wanted to see the new hero and Wymack had told him he had no choice but to go. It went about as well as a house on fire. Being at the safehouse was nice because it was a home that he’d never truly had before but it was also like walking on eggshells. There were too many people with powers that could get to him for him to ever really be able to relax unless it was Andrew.
Andrew, who had power that directly let him be able to see what he was feeling.
“I’d ask how you know but I know the answer already.”
Andrew didn’t say a word. Melder had the ability to read other’s emotions. It didn’t sound like too much when it was put out like that but the publish didn’t exactly know about the second part. That he could control other people’s emotions as well. Some on the team had made jokes about Andrew and their team therapist, Bee, sharing powers so similar that they could be mother and son. Bee with her ability to read minds and control them too if she wanted. She promised them that she wouldn’t control them. Andrew never said it but Neil knew he had the same rule as well.
Abby, their team doctor, and her healing powers often had her calling on Andrew for help when one of them was hurt but refusing to say it. Andrew didn’t normally comply with her but there were times that he did. Neil supposed the fact that his partner was cornering him here on a roof instead of having this conversation back at the safehouse was his small act of mercy on him.
“It’s been hard to eat.”
The nightmares had been getting to him. He would close his eyes and he would imagine the Ravens or his father standing over him. After they had all learned through the death of one of their teammates just how tied together the criminal web was within the hero community, he hadn’t been able to stop them. He’d listen to Allison crying. He’d listen to Renee talk her down from crafting an illusion of Seth with her powers just to see him there with her again. He’d listened to all of the team grieve and he’d known that it was his fault.
His fault for antagonizing Riko and the Ravens on one of his first debuts with a camera and microphone.
He didn’t even know how to begin apologizing for what he’d done.
It had ended up wit him going quiet when they were together for their team activities. He drew himself back. Sure, he had been with them for some time now but that didn’t change the facts of what he’d done.
Andrew frowned at the side of his head as Neil looked back over the city lights.
He could imagine what his parents would do if they were here right now. Pushing him off the roof would be too easy. His father might even celebrate him for leading to the death of one of the other Foxes. They were meant to be building their strength as a team so that they would stand a chance to fight against the Ravens come the tournament but Neil had gone and gotten their only member with super strength killed. He’d ruined their morale. He’d destroyed all the function they were supposed to have built up.
He wasn’t even good enough by Queen’s standard. With a power like perfection, Neil was never going to be enough. there was always bound to be some kind of flaw that Kevin would find in him.
The team would argue with each other and he would find himself caught in the middle of it. The nightmares were coming back.
His mother’s body. How he’d held her body. Their final conversation. What she would say if she could see him now. Her hands in his hair. How they would move someplace else and she would scream at him for being so utterly careless. She would tell him directly that it was his fault Seth was dead. Neil knew it was the truth.
His father, if he were here, would kill him. It wouldn’t be fast enough for just a simple push off the ledge of the roof either. He would take Andrew and hold him down. He would hurt him. He would pin Neil down and make him watch as he carved and butchered his partner and then Neil himself would be next. It would be brutal. It would be painful.
He was afraid of it.
His metabolism paid the price.
If it was because of his mother or not, he didn’t know, but when the stress was high like this he couldn’t get himself to eat. There was always her voice in the back of his mind that told him he was going to stand out. He was going to get the Foxes tracked and killed. it was bad enough to have the Ravens hunging them and trying to kill them because of the things he would say on the media but if he wasn’t careful then the Butcher would be there too. His father, a supervillain. His father, noted and powerful and strong and dangerous. His father, who if the press saw even a split second of, would destroy the Foxes reputation.
What little they had of it anyway.
He wasn’t even sure when the last time he’d eaten a proper meal was. Yesterday? He was fine. He would continue to be fine. He’d dealt with worse when he was on the run with his mom. It was necessary for them to survive and it felt necessary now.
“Neil—”
Andrew’s fingers grazed his shoulder and Neil flinched.
It wasn’t voluntary. He didn’t mean to. He realized what he’d done the moment it happened and turned horrified eyes to his partner.
“I didn’t—”
“I know.”
“You didn’t—-”
“I know.”
Andrew’s voice was tight. His hand went to the gap between them.
Neil cursed himself and his stupidity.
“You need to eat.”
He could at least have the decency to sound mullified when Andrew spoke to him. He clasped his hands together in his lap and squeezed.
“I know.”
“You’ll pass out and be a liability in the field. Is that what you want?”
The shakiness in his limbs. The fact that if he went long enough without eating he would lose accesss to his powers. It made him sick. The team knew it too. He should have known they would know the signs and they would scold him for it.
“No.”
“Why weren’t you eating?”
“Nightmares.”
Andrew’s head tipped back. The domino mask made him harder to read at times but Neil knew other ways to tell what Andrew was thinking. The lines of his shoulder and the tense of the muscles in his neck and jaw. The way he breathed, even, was a way to check what was in his head.
“You’re mad at me.”
“Yes.”
Neil nodded. The city stank but at least it reminded him of where he was.
“Tell me when you have nightmares.”
“Drew…”
“I wasn’t asking. Tell me. We will eat.”
He could imagine Kevin’s conniption about that now. Knowing exactly the fact that Andrew was going to use late night trips to the kitchen as an excuse to eat sugar upon piled sugary icecream. Part of him wanted to point it out. The other part of him wanted to curl up in bed with Andrew at his side and sleep knowing he was safe.
His stomach growled. His vision blurred.
Andrew huffed and reached for his comm.
“Rave,” the alias Nicky had picked for himself.
“Yeah?” His voice came steady over the comm. Neil knew already what Andrew was about to do. The concern it was going to raise.
“Teleport the Rabbit and I back.”
“Are you guys hurt?”
“No.”
He at least covered for him there.
“Why can’t he just run you both? Don’t you want to flirt—”
“Another word and I’ll kill you.”
“On it on it understood. One teleport coming up.”
Andrew stood and held out his hand. He was slow with the motion. He made sure Neil could see it every moment he shifted. it was a silent offer, not an order.
Neil took his hand.
“What are you going to tell them?”
He stepped closer to Andrew as the teleport portal opened in front of them. His partner was warm, he felt nice.
“Nothing.”
Neil smiled as they stepped through.