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ephemeral-afterlight · 4 years

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Hngh I want to know what happens next in superhero au so bad

previous part

they have a lair. they have an actual, real life lair. a superhero lair hidden underground about a mile outside the city, underneath an old factory that virgil wouldn't have looked twice at had he not been lead by the others through the gate. in the doors, down hallways, through yet another gate, down a long, long flight of spiral stairs, into a dark room, through a locked mechanical door that whirs open courtesy of codebreaker, and into the huge room that looks like something straight out of a science fiction movie. they have a lair, in 2019. virgil feels like he's just stepped straight into an alternate dimension.

"sit," the ringleader tells him as he walks by, cane tapping and echoing in the huge room at slow, uniform intervals. virgil’s wide-eyed wonder draws a giggle from the medic, of whom comes up to him with a hop in his step and peers at him with knowing eyes. he leans forward with his hands clasped behind his back, rolling back and forth from the ball of his foot to the heel in giddiness. his skirt swishes with the motion, seemingly just as lively as the man himself is, and virgil finds it almost comforting despite the simultaneous annoyance at the cheery disposition.

“want some nutrient-infused water? it’s got lots of vitamins and stuff that’s good for you in it! and it tastes like strawberries!” the medic asks, not stopping to wait for virgil’s answer before producing a small bottle the size of his palm from the inside of his cape. at first, virgil wonders incredulously if he keeps little water bottles hidden in tiny cape pockets for spur-of-the-moment use, but then the medic sticks his fist out to drop the bottle into virgil’s hand and his cape flutters open to reveal something that looks like a fanny pack strapped to his chest just above the bottom of his ribcage. it has a heart and cross symbol identical to the ones on his waist and shoes, and virgil realizes that it must be some sort of first aid kit or medical pack.

“oh, uh--” virgil starts, about to decline, but the small frown that forms on the medic’s face makes him feel too guilty to pass it up. with a laboured sigh, virgil accepts the bottle, bringing it up closer to his face to examine it. it looks pretty normal, like water that’s lightly tinted pink. the bottle itself is more like a vial, just without the rounded bottom. this could easily be poison, but they are superheroes, and virgil doubts that heroes would go as far as to try to kill him, even if they’re not completely convinced he’s not their enemy.

as virgil pops the cap off sinks into the chair the ringleader provided him, the scent of the water wafts up toward him almost immediately. it’s potent, but it doesn’t smell bad, necessarily. artificial strawberry assaults his senses, overpowering him in a way that reminds him of the awful, cavity-inducing candies he used to steal from his grandma’s purse and munch on when he was younger. it’s not exactly like how he’d expect poison or chemicals to smell, but then again, a lot of poison isn’t supposed to smell like anything, so.

even though he really, really doesn’t want to drink this stuff, the medic is staring him down expectantly, bright blue puppy dog eyes boring into his soul. it’s like those eyes have picked him up and laid him in clouds, pulled a warm blanket over him and wished him goodnight. a crackling fireplace, hot chocolate and marshmallows, fuzzy socks and hardwood floors and fluffy rugs. it’s like looking into his eyes washes all of his worry away, like they pull out all of his sorrow and hardship and leave him with only pure warmth, and virgil realizes with a jolt that he’s already downed the whole bottle without even feeling it.

upon seeing the now-drained bottle in his hand, empty save for a few trace amounts of leftover liquid, virgil winces. he waits for something to go wrong, to feel a burning in his throat or a headache or to faint or even for him to just flat-out die, but there’s none of that. just the effluvious tang of an offensive mockery of strawberry flavouring coating his mouth and throat. virgil wrinkles his nose and glares at the clear bottle as if it personally threatened him.

“hey, med, come check the counter with me, ‘kay?” the prince says suddenly, an unreadable look flashing in his golden eyes as he watches the two of them before being masked by friendliness when his gaze meets virgil’s own. virgil’s suspicion goes nowhere, seemingly dissolves into thin air when the medic lays a comforting hand on his shoulder through the dark cloak. his touch almost burns with warmth, infuses him with calm, and virgil’s lashes flutter under the weight of his sudden onslaught of sleepiness. then the medic is gone, disappears through another one of those weird high-tech spaceship doors with the prince, and the haze over virgil’s mind slowly begins to clear.

“you say you are not the storm. who are you, then?” the codebreaker suddenly speaks up, smooth voice drifting over from his spot at some sort of panel. it glows brightly, so blinding virgil can’t make out any kind of images or words that it might display, and yet codebreaker somehow seems to be interacting with it effortlessly. he floats there in front of it despite there being a chair right beside him, back hunched and knees pulled up to his chest. his head is tilted, rests on his shoulders as if he’s too weary to hold it up, and his eyes only flit to virgil once before returning to observe the panel in front of him through his hologram face-screen thingy.

“don’t look at the console for too long. it’s not healthy. code-y over there is the only one who can actually see what’s on it. his holovisor has some sort of light filter, or something,” the ringmaster remarks to virgil’s left, leaning on his cane with an air of boredom that virgil doesn’t think is very fair to display. he inspects his nails like he has somewhere better to be, but he’s wearing gloves, so it just ends up making him look weird. then again, the michievous look in his eyes has a hint of knowing to it, so maybe he’s trying to look stupid on purpose just to fuck with him.

“i’m… my name is virgil. im just a guy, man. like i said, i work at a shitty job and still live with my parents. i’m not some… crazy evil supervillain,” virgil tells them, and funnily enough, that desperation he’s been feeling this entire time seems to have completely vanished. he’s wary, but not afraid, which is completely different to how he was feeling just thirty minutes ago.

“virgil altera, born to a liliana altera and a harold whitman. mother is an authour who hasn’t been published in nine years, father is the ceo of an insurance company. you were kidnapped from a local park at age four and stayed missing for five years, until you randomly turned up wandering along a highway outside of a town hundreds of miles away. you were badly beaten and starved, yet were somehow able to walk almost perfectly despite your dangerous condition. you remembered nothing about where you had been, and there was no trail to determine the assailant or where they took you. the case went cold, you returned to your parents, and you were enrolled in middle school by the next year. you graduated from high school with no notable achievements, started working as an office temp, and have been presumably been doing the same thing ever since. an odd story for someone who claims to be a ‘normal guy’, don’t you think?”

okay then. so the codebreaker can just somehow get his whole life story in a matter of seconds. it’s fine. this is fine.

the ringleader raises his brow, the one that’s visible, and lets out a disbelieving snort. “kidnapped? beaten? starved? sounds like a villain backstory to me.”

“yes, well. i suppose we should hear from virgil first before making any rash decisions,” the codebreaker says, finally looking up from the screen and straight at him. virgil draws in on himself, pulse quickening with the amount of information they have on him this easily. the chair is hard underneath his legs, of which are slowly going numb, and virgil can feel the air slowly getting colder as his panic increases. neither of them seem to notice, or if they do, they don’t mention it. the ringleader taps a foot impatiently while virgil just stares, silent and fidgety as he tries to figure out what to say.

“i… i don’t really remember any-- any of that stuff. well, i kinda remember walking on the highway, and someone taking me to a police station, but not the-- not anything before that. i’ve tried so hard to remember but the most i got with my therapist was the word ‘hens’ printed on some sort of paper. that’s really all i remember, i promise,” virgil mutters, swallowing hard under the ringleader’s icy look. the codebreaker says nothing, only narrows his eyes slightly as if he’s contemplating something, and then he turns right back around with his coat flapping behind him as he resumes his position at the bright panel. the ringleader huffs once and rolls his eyes, leaning forward and hoisting himself up onto the raised platform the console resides on instead of walking around to the other side and using the set of stairs there.

the two seem to talk in hushed tones to each other, ignoring virgil’s presence completely, something that both irritates him and relieves him. although he wishes they’d stop being so secretive and just tell him what’s going on and how to fix it, he much prefers the disregard than the intense scrutiny. it gives him a moment to breathe, to try to rein in his frustration and panic. instead of speaking up, he decides to look around the room again, takes in the rows and rows of screens and buttons and switches. it all looks extremely high-tech, futuristic, almost, like he’s just boarded an alien spaceship and is now seeing the ship’s control room. glowing blue light comes from everywhere, enhancing the dim atmosphere with something clandestine.

“alright. if you’re not the storm, then why do you have the same powers? how’d you deflect my whips?” the ringleader asks loudly, snapping virgil out of his reverie. his face is mostly neutral, but there’s a hint of annoyance underneath that suggests a bruised ego. virgil jumps to his feet and stands at attention, something in the ringleader’s tone making him afraid of what will happen if he doesn’t pay attention. “because from what we saw, the storm was fighting us like normal, and then suddenly stopped in the middle of an attack and just dropped out of the sky. we thought it was a trick, so we all fell in and approached together. but instead of an ambush, you were just standing there on the ground not even acknowledging us. i tried to attack, you blocked it, and then instead of dodging princey’s punch, you cowered. so if you truly aren’t the storm, then why do you look like him? why do you have the same body, the same clothes, the same face and voice? why can you use the same powers?”

and virgil honestly doesn’t know what to say. he fell out of the sky? how is he even alive right now?

“i… i don’t know, okay?! all i know is that i woke up standing on that street. you tried to hit me with those glow-y whip thingies, so i tried to put my hands up so it wouldn’t hit my face, and then fucking lightning came out of my hands! i didn’t do it on purpose! how the fuck am i supposed to know? if i did, i wouldn’t have walked this whole time with these stupid bandages on my feet instead of shoes! and now my feet have rocks in them and i’m bleeding and i think my leg is hurt somehow and i feel like i’m gonna pass out any minute and i’m just tired! i want to go home! i want to go back to my stupid boring desk job and live my stupid boring life! i’m not a villain! i’m not… i’m not a killer,” virgil chokes out, voice breaking before he can truly end his rant. and it’s true, his feet do hurt. they feel blistered, sore, sting with the specific type of pain reserved for a cut. his right leg is throbbing, shaky like it could give out any minute, and his arms are so weak he can barely raise them above waist-level. he’s hungry, and angry, and he just wants to sleep. he probably looks like a zombie right now, and he feels like it too.

“wait! you’re hurt?! why didn’t you tell me? that water just isn’t enough to heal you,” the medic’s familiar voice comes as a worried exclamation from the direction of the door he and the prince disappeared into, and virgil turns to see both of them re-entering the room. the prince looks confused, and the medic immediately jumps into action, fretting over him with small touches here and there that alleviate just a little bit of the ache. virgil is pushed gently back into the chair, and then the medic’s gloves are tapping indeterminable patterns into his blood-stained pant leg. it hurts for a moment, feels like a burning sensation as the little hearts on the pads of his glove fingers glow, but then he can feel an odd numbness taking over everything else. he can feel his skin stitching itself back up, his muscles releasing tension, the nerves calming down. it leaves him exhausted, the medic perhaps even more so, what with the way he lets out a strained breath and wobbles to fall down to sit back on the floor. the prince immediately shoots over and kneels behind the other superhero, propping him up to sit at a more normal angle while he catches his breath, and virgil almost feels kinda bad that he sacrificed so much of his energy to help him.

“hey, are you-- are you messing with my emotions?” virgil asks, and the medic looks at him inquisitively from where he’s sitting on the floor in front of the chair. his skirt is spread out around him, draped over his legs and the glassy, reflective black floor. virgil doesn’t really know how a skirt is practical in battle, but he’s not exactly the expert here, so.

“of course! that’s what i do. you were scared, so i made you relaxed instead!” the medic tells him, happy eyes and happy smiles and despite his previous calm, virgil feels annoyance prick at his chest.

“don’t do that. that’s not cool,” virgil says, voice hard, and this time, he feels even more guilty when the medic shrinks in on himself meekly. the prince narrows his eyes dangerously, posture raising in warning, and virgil doesn’t pay him a single bit of attention despite his own fear. “i get that you’re trying to help, but i don’t want you to do that to me without my permission. it just confuses me and makes me tired. please don’t do it unless i say you can, alright?”

his voice is much softer this time, less accusatory, and his gentler approach is obviously the correct one. the medic perks up again, eyes wide as he nods vigorously, and he squeaks out a small “sorry! i’ll be more careful!” before placing his fingers on another bruise and repeating the process of healing all over again. the prince slumps back, still on guard but less confrontational, and the quiet resumes.

eventually, after a couple more rounds of this, filled with the medic ‘tsk’ing at every scrape and gasping at the state of his soles, virgil feels like he can actually stay conscious again. the medic looks a little rough, like he could pass out any second, so the prince picks him up bridal-style with ease and says something about “saving the damsel in distress”. the medic’s weary giggles echo all the way down the corridor for a few long moments after the two of them leave, presumably to rest elsewhere.

“i have come to the conclusion that you are the villain known as ‘the storm’,” the codebreaker says stoically once the noise completely vanishes. the ringleader’s head snaps over to look at him, surprised enough to stumble a bit on his cane, although he rights himself and resumes his put-together appearance as quickly as possible anyway. the words are like a knife through virgil’s heart, an electrified death sentence. they didn’t listen. they didn’t believe him. there’s no way he’s making it out of here. he’s gonna be a prisoner the rest of his life, paying the price and enduring the punishment for a crime he didn’t commit. “the evidence put together all suggests that you are the storm, and you do have powers. you admitted to using them yourself, albeit unintentionally. by all accounts, you are a powered individual and the villain we have been fighting for the past three years.

“however, i don’t believe that this is the full story. i think there’s more to it, that there has to be something else we’re missing. although i have not come to an agreement within myself on whether i believe you are completely innocent yet, i believe that you believe what you are saying, and that you think your version of events is the truth. if you truly do not remember this, remember being the storm and fighting us and wreaking havoc, then many questions have been raised that must be addressed. why do you not remember your villainous activities? why were you unaware that you have powers in the first place? is this the work of someone else? if so, then who? what is their goal? why are they using you as an intermediary for their influence? there is much to think about, and i cannot waste any more time just standing around,” the codebreaker finishes, ramblings coming to an abrupt halt as his holovisor drops open in front of his eyes again and he starts swiping and tapping at the bright console for the third time. virgil wants to know exactly what it is he’s doing over there, but he doesn’t really think he’s in the position to ask at the moment.

“for now, i’d like you, prince, and medic to train him. show him how to use his powers, and how to fight. he could be a viable asset and potentially act as a stand-in to fight villains while i work,” codebreaker commands pointedly at the ringleader, of whom opens his mouth as if he’s going to say something, but decides against it and simply nods.

“alright. virgil, right? come with me. i hope you don’t have anyone waiting for you at home, because you’re staying here for the time being,” the ringleader tells him, a snarky grin plastered on his face as he turns to stride over to the same door that the prince and the medic left through. virgil just stands there, mouth agape, unable to process everything that’s happening. he’s staying here? in the weird superhero lair? he’s gonna live underneath an old factory in this weird sci-fi spaceship bunker until they… what? figure out why he’s the storm, why he has powers? are they going to help him finally figure out what happened to him when he was a kid?

“are you coming?” the ringleader asks, voice low and seductive, but not in the way virgil is used to hearing from his misogynist coworkers in the break room. his voice doesn’t promise sex, or money, or fame. it promises adventure, promises answers, and virgil groans internally when he realizes that there’s absolutely no way he could ever say no to that.

small taglist: @illogical-anxieties @kazykazu @sharp-as-hyalus @bookwyrminspiration @thekitchenpan @bunny222

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