D.R.E.A.M. Index #337255 [Updated as of Dec 2019]

Classification: Class A.2.i [Secondary Tier, Threat Response, Legacy]

Name: Doctor Vectorious

Status: ACTIVE

Civilian Name: [CLEARANCE: TOP SECRET] Logan Lancaster

Threat Status: Threat Response Team

/////////H.A.T.C.H. Status: On Call

Partners/Sidekicks: member of  DI#A-4894 - Team Left Brain; DI#A-4895 - Team Right Brain

Primary Foes: N/A 

/////////No particular villains, just the normal run of chaotic forces

Powers: Speed - Broad Spectrum;

Costume: Dark blue and black bodysuit, white V, silver goggles

/////////Goggle technological enhancements include: binocular vision, night vision, recording and playback, rudimentary facial recognition

Age: 23

Height: 5’5”

Pronouns: He/Him

H.E.A.R.T.S. Class of ‘11; Advanced studies Class of ‘14 

Note: Son of DI#265345 - Professor Polarity; Earned his PhD in Physics from University of Harmony City in 2016; Key witness in trial of DI#265345 regarding Project Charcoal, see IR19-Z-0001.

Logan has been brilliant since his childhood. It is believed (by him and others) that his super speed extends to the rate at which he is able to absorb, process, and distill new information. In the past, he was known for his very strict black-and-white view of the world, particularly regarding supers and morality as a whole. This changed largely due to his parents’ involvement in Project Charcoal, coupled with his introduction and familiarity (and later relationship) with the members of Team Right Brain. 

He has recently resumed his research in addition to serving as an active super. Building on his doctoral thesis and some buried results produced by the other Drs. Lancaster, he is researching ways that supers (particularly young supers) can use the properties of power-dampeners and -enhancers to modulate the force of their powers for training, as well as for mental health applications.

While he shied away from the public eye in the immediate wake of his parents’ trial, he [and his partners] have been slowly taking on more prominent roles in awareness campaigns around young supers or those with newly-acquired powers, aimed at supporting the supers and their loved ones.

Appearance notes: Built like a sprinter - on the shorter side, stocky with thick thighs. Pale skin, light brown hair, grey eyes. Wears black, thick-rimmed glasses when he’s in civilian clothes.

Fire. All was fire. Bricks and mortar fell around him, debris scattered in every direction.

The building was collapsing, but he walked through untouched. He heard yells, screams, and terrible silences punctuated by the churn and roar of the inferno surrounding him. Crashes rang out, and the flame was replaced by clouds of dust. The grey mass swirled in close, a claustrophobic column surrounding him. One by one, faces began to appear, profiles carved in debris that stared at him as he moved through the wreckage. He wanted to stop, but knew he didn’t have time. He needed to get to the center.

Voices drifted around him, echoing off fallen, shattered walls.

“Save me!”

“Don’t leave us!”

“Why aren’t you helping?”

He began to run, his destination near. The dust suddenly fell to the ground, the devastation no longer obscured or hidden as he stumbled over piles of what he told himself were just stone and bricks, nothing more. He neared the center, the pull that had urged him on easing at last.

A face in the wreckage. A hand, bruised, reaching out to him. A clear voice, speaking through vocal chords that should have been scratched and rough.

“You let me die.”

Patton awoke in darkness. Once, these nightmares had left him breathless and gasping through choked sobs. Once, he’d suffered from insomnia from the mere thought of encountering those images once again. But he’d since learned he only dreamed once a night. He shifted position, trying to find a comfortable spot in his blankets to fall back asleep.

He gazed up into the night sky. It was late enough tonight and their home far away enough from downtown that he could even see a star or two, along with the brighter planets. The white-and-red lights of a plane blinked silently across the sky, too far away to hear.

Patton took a deep breath, absorbing the night sounds and sights. It seemed all so vivid tonight, more than most. When had he last seen the stars look like this?

When was the last time he had seen the stars at all?

Patton sat up suddenly, pushing his blanket off. He was on the hard ground itself, only stolen pillows and blankets where his bed normally lay. The concrete around him was littered with food in a sad heap, knick-knacks in haphazard piles, and the few electronics they owned. Their home was gone, vanished into air.

Patton grabbed his costume from where the foot of his bed should have been, and dug out the scanner from a small pile of belongings. There was only one thing this could mean. And only two people he could think of that could offer any real help.

~~~~~~

Virgil was very, very tired of being jolted awake by the H.A.T.C.H. beacon. Particularly because he was a light sleeper and set his alarm accordingly at a reasonable volume. Logan, who was blinking but barely awake, could sleep through marching bands (and in fact had once back in school, in an incident involving a bet, the library, and a very well-executed surprise party). The nerd’s blaring alarm had Virgil’s heart racing from the split second it had started, and he woke up properly when his face made contact with the hard floor of Logan’s apartment.

“Lo, get up!” he snapped.

“Five more minutes,” his partner muttered sleepily.

“I’m drinking all the coffee,” Virgil threatened.

An arm shot out of the messed-up sheets, levering the short form up to sitting. “How dare-”

“Good, you’re up,” Virgil called from the closet, tossing Logan’s costume at his head. “It’s HATCH, so let’s get-” He stopped mid-sentence as he looked at his watch. “It’s- the villains calling, actually.”

Logan grabbed his goggles from the bedside table, suddenly much more alert. “That doesn’t bode well.”

“Let’s go.”

They’d barely made it out of the fire escape when the painfully-rushing air around them made it clear that Gale Force was approaching. The villain’s costume was wrinkled and askew, his red curls unevenly fluffy and matted around his head as he landed unceremoniously right between them.

“They got him. They got Ro,” he gasped out, eyes flashing.

“The Marauder? Who’s got him? How do you know?” Logan asked.

“Our home is gone. It’s his construct. His oldest one. Whatever happened, it’s bad, and I’m going to kill whatever piece of shit did this the minute you help me find them,” Patton snapped.

Virgil scowled. “If they killed him, I’ll help you do it.”

“No killing,” Logan interjected disapprovingly. He met the gazes of the two supers and amended, “Not yet. Let’s try to find the Marau- let’s find Roman first. When did they get him?”

Patton frowned, resenting the delay, and opened his mouth to snap at the speedster. Virgil caught his eye and jerked his head lightly. The air manipulator sighed and relented. “He was in a frenzy, flying off into the clouds, so I went home by myself and woke up to realize the house was gone. But it was there when I fell asleep so whatever happened was after dark.”

“A frenzy - was it a manic phase?” Logan said.

“Probably. He has highs and lows, but they don’t normally come on or fade this fast. But that means I have no idea when he would have come down again.”

“And the house missing - this has never happened before?” Virgil asked, his forehead knitting together in worry.

“Never. He’s been knocked out in fights or dead asleep for days at a time an it’s never wavered. Once his constructs are around long enough, they stay that way.”

“So this means that he’s…” Logan began, then stopped himself. “This means he needs our help. Let’s split up to search faster. Gale Force, you know your neighborhood best. Search all your hiding spots and meeting places, sticking to Sycamore Heights and southwest. Reflex, you take northwest. I’ll search the east. We’ll meet back at the statue in forty-five minutes if we don’t find anything, and send a message if we do. Gale, take this, for convenience.” He offered an extra HATCH band. Patton’s face was unreadable as he accepted it and strapped it to his wrist.

“We’ll find him,” Virgil said softly, and squeezed Patton’s shoulder firmly. Then he was off, soaring into the air.

“Forty-five minutes to rendezvous, or send us a ping,” Logan repeated, then he was off too, running to search half the city for a man he’d helped arrest just four days prior after fighting for weeks on end.

The small man was truly a blur today, zipping through the streets, noting oddities and things out of place. He looked for broken entrances, or remnants of crimson light, or anything indicating super activity. The civilians throughout the city seemed to be clips from a movie, slowed to a crawl. It was a strange pantomime of daily life in slow-motion, one that Logan hardly noticed as he ducked in and out of streets.

Zip.

He was in at the harbor, checking around the docks as seagulls moved like uncertain marionnettes through the air above him. A toddler, skipping along with her dad, would have run straight into him had she been moving at full speed.

Whoosh.

He was near the University, checking the labs, taking only a moment to watch his dad move glacially around his instruments. Ooh, is that two different methods of single-cell RNA sequencing being done in tandem? I wonder if he’s getting different results from PCR and IVT, he thought, intrigued, before pulling himself back to task. Roman was still missing. He could indulge in science later.

Fwip.

He was in a small park in the financial district, looking in the gazebo and bushes as he dodged around a dog-walker out with six charges whose floppy ears and tongues were caught in mid-bounce.

Zip.

He was running down streets, checking in and out of alleys and dumpsters. His adrenaline was pumping, far more than normal for this amount of exercise. He felt like he was about to strike a blow against a villain, or dodge an attack. He paused for just a moment, to catch his breath and let himself feel the normal progression of time. Leaning against a smokestack on a roof, his fingers started to tap unconsciously to the beat of the pulsing thoughts in his brain.

Where is he?

Is he okay?

Will we find him?

What do we do if we don’t?

Suddenly, his phone buzzed, and he picked up to Virgil’s low, familiar voice.

“Lo, I found him.”

“Where?”

“Sugarland.”

“Is he…?”

“He’s alive.”

Logan deflated, tension he hadn’t even realized he was carrying melting away, muscles loosening, the tide of thoughts receding back to their normal surf.

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know, Lo. He’s… unconscious. Pat- Gale Force and I just got him to the hospital. He just went inside with Roman while I called you.”

Logan straightened, adjusting his goggles. “Roman is in a coma?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be there in a second, Vee.”

And he was. Blurring through the city, Logan arrived at Virgil’s side in a moment. The tall man was still hanging up his phone and putting it in his pocket when Logan wrapped his arms around his partner’s waist and squeezed tight.

“Are you alright?”

“I have to be.”

“But are you?” Logan asked seriously. Virgil was about to respond, but paused, and took a deep breath.

“I’ll feel better once we talk to the doctors.”

“Let’s go then. I’ll follow you. And we should probably change out of our costumes.”

Virgil nodded. Both heroes stepped around in the alley and changed into civilian wear. Virgil walked back into the direct sun, firmly ensconced back in his familiar hoodie, and took another stabilizing breath. “I’ll be okay, Lo.”

“I’ll be here for you even if you’re not, Vee. I love you.”

Virgil turned and cupped Logan’s face with one hand. He smiled into his partner’s eyes, affection and gratitude mixing with his palpable nervousness. Then he turned and walked through the hospital doors, still walking like Reflex in his intensity and speed. Logan paused and typed out a quick message on his phone before following.

~~~~~~

Virgil glanced at his phone, tapped his watch, and turned sharply towards the elevator bay. He strode through the halls, barely glancing at the signs, only checking his surroundings. Elevator. Button. Doors close. Wait. Doors open. Walk out. Left. Down two intersections. Right. Down to the windows. Turn.

He paused at the ward door until he saw movement beyond the door, familiar ginger curls pulling a second chair over to the bed. He knocked, gently, and Patton looked up and nodded.

He felt Patton’s eyes on him as he entered. His cheeks flared with heat. Of course - the villain had never seen him without his mask. Even though he knew he was far more covered in his long sleeves and loose jeans, he suddenly felt indecently exposed.

He cleared his throat. “Have the doctors seen him yet?”

Patton, dressed down in a polo and a cardigan, nodded. “They just went back to consult.”

“Has he …?”

“No,” the ginger man responded, eyes swiveling back to the man lying motionless beside him.

Virgil sat in the extra chair carefully. He hadn’t realized he’d been holding his breath until he saw Roman’s chest rise and fall and felt his own respond in imitation. The villain appeared to be sleeping, except for a certain stiffness in his posture. That, and the lack of response to even Patton’s desperate shaking when Virgil had called him to the alley where he’d found the unconscious man. The sterile sheets, bluish-grey and stiff, were a stark contrast to Roman’s tan skin, but only managed to make him look washed out and fragile. Virgil couldn’t help but realize he also hadn’t seen the construct-maker unmasked before, either. His unobscured handsomeness was no surprise, and certainly not one of Virgil’s current priorities. Especially not when the mask had been replaced with a neck brace and cannula.

The doctor came in with Logan in tow, and Virgil was on his feet immediately.

“Hello, good morning, I’m his… the one who found him.”

The doctor nodded. “Good morning, I’m Dr. Ahmad. I’ll be Roman’s primary attendant until he’s out of this ward. I’ve already met Mr. Sanders,” she added with a nod to Patton. “Can I have your names as well?”

Logan and Virgil made eye contact, both assessing until Logan spoke. “I’m Logan Lancaster.”

“And I’m Virgil Skylar.”

“Skylar?” Dr. Ahmad asked with an eyebrow raised. “That sounds familiar. But let me tell you all how our patient is doing.”

The three supers moved together to Roman’s bedside, eyes glued to the doctor. Her teal hijab matched the scrubs under her labcoat perfectly, and as she tapped a finger on her clipboard, Virgil noticed her nails matched, too.

“Roman is currently in a state of unresponsiveness. We are not yet able to determine if he is fully in a comatose state. What that means is we’re not sure if he is aware of his surroundings, but he does not appear able to respond to any stimuli.”

“Do you know how he ended up like this?” Virgil asked. “Any trauma, any internal bleeding?”

“We’ve found no trauma, no bruising, no internal bleeding. From preliminary scans, there’s nothing inside the skull, either. Besides being underfed, he’s in remarkably good health. Except, of course, for the lack of consciousness. Do any of you know of his medical history?”

Logan scratched the back of his neck. “I believe he may have untreated and undiagnosed bipolar disorder. But I’m not a professional, and haven’t conducted an assessment regardless. As far as family history…” he looked over at Patton, who was rubbing small circles on Roman’s thigh.

“There’s no other family to contact,” the ginger-haired man replied shortly. “And he’s never been to a doctor before.”

Dr. Ahmad nodded. “Understood. Unfortunately, because we can’t tell what induced the current state, we can’t make a prognosis at the current time.”

“Does this hospital have specialists in recognizing and treating illness induced by enhanced abilities?” Logan asked.

The doctor turned to him, then looked over the other visitors. “Ah,” she said quietly. “You’re those four. Yes, we do. They’re not in yet today, but we’ll send for them as soon as possible. Hopefully they’ll get us some more definite answers. Until then, all we can do is make Roman comfortable and hope he wakes on his own.”

“We can stay with him, right?” Patton asked, not looking up from where his eyes were fixed on Roman’s unconscious face.

“Visiting hours end at eight pm…” she began, but Virgil made eye contact with an eyebrow raised. “Visiting hours officially end at eight,” she amended. “And in my official capacity, I must of course advise you to leave by then. But we do have a tendency to, ah, miss certain wards in the nightly rounds.”

Patton squeezed Roman’s hand, steadfastly refusing to look away from his partner’s face. “What does that mean? I can’t… I don’t have anywhere else I could possibly be, not now.”

Virgil placed a careful hand on the villain’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “It means you can stay, Patton. No one is going to make you leave him alone.”

“I’ll be back later for further tests and any updates,” the doctor said. “The call button is here, and there’s a nurse stand down the hall to the left if you need anyone or anything.” She scribbled a note on Roman’s chart, nodded to them all, and departed.

Patton scooted his chair closer and brushed Roman’s hair out of his face. “Rospberry, I’m so sorry,” he whispered to the unconscious man. “I should have stayed with you. I should have kept you safe.”

Logan stood at the foot of the bed, reading the chart, but looked up at Patton’s quiet remark. “You cannot blame yourself for this, Gale- Patton. Whoever put him in this state is the one who owns all of the responsibility. Roman’s a good fighter - to still be caught means he must have been taken entirely by surprise.”

Patton looked back at Logan, a strange expression on his face. “I- thank you, Doc. Logan, was it?”

“Yes. Logan Lancaster.”

“Sorry, what was that, I think your volume’s too low-”

“I said-”

“-gan!”

Logan inhaled sharply, closing his eyes. “God, not even my dad’s come up with that one yet, and he gave me that name.”

“What can I say, Doc, I really got that Pat-ernal spirit!”

“...I might scream.”

“Dr. Ahmad will yell at you if you do,” Virgil put in, watching the exchange with amusement.

“She cannot do anything further to hurt me, not when I’m subjected to these puns no matter where I go.”

“You don’t find them humorous?” Patton asked, eyes dancing. Virgil smirked, but didn’t stop Logan as he replied.

“No, I do not.”

“Well it’s a good thing we’re in the hospital, you’ve clearly lost your funny bone!”

Logan stood up straight and walked over to the wall, where he made a show of slowly beating his head against it.

Virgil snorted and sat by Roman’s side once more. He hesitated, then reached out to hold the unconscious man’s hand. It felt off, somehow. He glanced down, and his eyebrows shot up.

“Lo, c’mere for a sec.”

Logan came up behind Virgil, resting his hands on his partner’s shoulders. “What is it?”

“Look at this - doesn’t this look like a deliberate fist?”

“You’re right, it does. Do you think he did it on purpose as he was going unconscious?”

“Maybe- can you check the other hand?”

Logan crossed, and carefully moved the sheets to reveal Roman’s right hand. “It’s a three, look! Fist and three - was he attacked by three people at once?”

Virgil was on his feet, pacing. “What trios do we know who are operating right now? Probably need to look at both heroes and villains and maybe even neutrals, they all could have some objection to what the Crimson Marauder’s been doing. Or he could have been in civilian wear, which pushes slightly more to villain or neutral.”

“There’s the copycat Fang Patrol attempting to form in the Heights, they’d be a likely enemy, right?” Logan mused. “I think the records I’ve seen indicate Roman was involved in defeating the original Patrol. Or the Triceras might be back in town.”

“Boys,” Patton said.

“I think Orion is operating again too, all three of them. We should call Talyn, they’d be able to help us narrow this down-”

“Boys,” Patton repeated, interrupting the back-and-forth. “Roman already told us exactly who attacked him.”

Both heroes turned, Virgil surprised, Logan skeptical. “How so?”

“Look at his hands. This isn’t just a fist. It’s a fist with the thumb on the side. That with the three fingers? He’s spelling in ASL. It’s ‘A’ and ‘W.’”

“Oh,” Virgil said, both heroes blushing slightly.

“Agent Whisper again,” Logan muttered. “I’d suspected, but hoped not.”

“This is all our fault,” Virgil said in a low voice, sitting down heavily. “We left him unprotected, knowing this fucker was out there.”

“Virge-” Logan began, but Virgil just shook his head miserably and took Roman’s hand in his again. Patton shifted his chair so he could mirror Virgil’s position on the other side, rubbing the back of Roman’s motionless hand with his thumb. Virgil looked up at the movement, and met Patton’s gaze. Both sets of eyes burned with the fire of revenge tempered by a stormcloud of guilt. Logan paused, unsure of how to help, but settled with resting his hands on Virgil’s shoulders and giving what he hoped was a comforting squeeze.

~~~~~~

Doctors and nurses came in sporadically over the course of the day, taking Roman’s pulse, drawing blood for additional tests, and checking all indicators of responsiveness. The three supers shifted around the room to give them space, never straying too far. The clock’s almost-imperceptible ticking swelled into a cacophony as Patton got quieter and quieter, his mouth settling into a grim line.

“I can’t take this anymore!” he finally burst out. “Roman might be dying and there’s nothing I can do! I can’t stand to see this, I can’t bear to lose him!”

He was halfway to the door where Virgil sped to stop him, hands braced against his shoulders and eyes blazing. “You can’t give up hope, Patton. You can’t leave him now, I know you can’t, because not knowing would be even worse than seeing him like this.” He talked low but quickly, trying to cram as many words as he could into Patton’s hearing before the villain stormed past him, literally. “I know this is painful, feeling helpless and guilty all at once. But Roman wouldn’t want you to be racing off, not when it means you could end up in your own bed next to him or worse. If you really need to get out of this room, at least take one of us with you, okay? Stay safe.” He saw Patton ready to spit out a biting response and preempted it. “Don’t do this for me. Do it for him.”

Patton looked ready to blast Virgil through a wall, blue eyes stony and cold. He stared hard at the tall hero for a long, tense moment, then finally deflated.

“I’m just so…” he trailed off.

“Worried? Scared?” Virgil suggested. “It’s okay. We’ll get through this. The doctors will help, and if Roman can hear us, even the tiniest bit, we’ll let him know we’re here for him, okay?”

Patton sagged further, and leaned forward into Virgil’s chest. Virgil’s eyes widened, but he moved automatically in response nonetheless, carefully wrapping his arms around the shorter man’s shoulders.

A knock on the door surprised them all, and Patton sprang out of Virgil’s grip. They all assumed it was another round of medical staff, and Logan was the first to call out, “Come in!”

In came two women, wearing neither scrubs nor lab coats. But their appearance caused Virgil to gasp in delight.

“Mum! Mama! What’re you doing here?!” Without waiting for an answer, he crossed the room and seized both women in a single tight hug, lifting them slightly off the ground as he did so.

“Lolo texted us,” the taller responded as Virgil put them both back on their feet. “He knew you’d need family.” She pushed back the red hairs that were falling out of her ponytail, smiling up at her son. They shared a similar build and jawline, but Virgil maintained he’d not inherited nearly the full level of dorkiness that either of his moms possessed. She waved at Logan at the back of the room, and turned to Patton. “Hello, I’m Celeste Skylar, Virgil’s Mum.”

“And I’m Tatiana, his Mama,” her wife said, extending a hand to shake. Patton took it carefully and shook it, seeming uncertain. Tatiana smiled wide, teeth flashing bright against her dark skin. “I’m sorry to have to meet a friend of Virgey’s in such a difficult context, but all I’m thinking right now is how much I love your curls!”

Patton hesitantly smiled back. “Hi, I’m Patton Sanders. I’m, uh. Virgil’s coworker?” he asked, glancing at the hero.

“Oh, we know about the whole thing,” Celeste said breezily, twiddling a hand to somehow indicate superpowers. “Are you one of the lovingly-frustrating villains?”

Virgil flushed. “Mum, that is not how I described them.”

“Yes, dear, but I can read between the lines. Or, listen, in this case. Logan, come here, it’s been too long.”

Logan obediently accepted enthusiastic hugs from both women, Tatiana planting a kiss on his cheek. “Thank you for texting me, sweetie. This is why we trust you with our boy. Now. How’s our patient?”

Virgil nodded to Patton, who led the moms over to the bed. “This is Roman. We found him early this morning, and think he’s been unconscious for over twelve hours now.”

Tatiana’s lips tightened for a moment as she gazed at Roman’s sleeping form. But she looked up again at Patton with a warmer expression. “And he’s your partner?”

“In all senses of the word, yes.” He looked down and smoothed Roman’s hair. “He’s my sunlight.”

“Then this is hard, like nothing you’ve done before,” Celeste said, her voice soft. “Because it’s nothing you can fight or fix, you just have to wait.”

Patton nodded, still on edge.

“That’s why we’re here. We’ll help get you set up to make the waiting easier,” Tatiana explained warmly. “I can’t tell you it won’t keep being hard, because I know it will. But the logistics don’t have to be what makes it hard. Now, let’s get you set up.”

Virgil and his moms immediately started moving. Virgil went to the waiting room around the corner and came back easily carrying two large, cushioned chairs. Celeste opened a nondescript cupboard to reveal a case of warm blankets. Tatiana sent Logan down to the nurse station to get extra pillows, while she produced bags and bags of snacks from her purse. Together they assembled a makeshift bed, right next to Roman’s.

Patton watched all this unfold, staring. He sat on the edge of the newly-formed bed and looked up at the wives. Tatiana was leaning against Celeste’s shoulder and their hands were interlocked as they both looked down at Roman.

“Why are you being so helpful?” he asked, brow furrowed. “You don’t know me, or Ro, and your son only stopped fighting us about four days ago…”

“Because we can,” Tatiana replied. “Because no matter who you are, you deserve to get the full mom treatment.”

Patton’s throat formed a lump, and he looked down at his lap. A hand lifted his chin until he was staring into Celeste’s bright blue eyes. She spread her arms. “You look like you could use a hug, honey.”

Patton stood and threw his arms around her waist as tears suddenly began to fall for the first time all day. He felt another set of arms circle behind him as he cried into Celeste’s pink denim jacket, and he felt Tatiana start stroking his hair.

“This okay, sweetie?”

All he could do was nod.

Eventually, his sobs subsided, and he sat back into his makeshift bed. Celeste sat with him, rubbing circles in his lower back. He felt the tears threatening to return as he remembered Miss Parsons doing the same, once upon a time. Tatiana brought him water and pushed a packet of fruit gummies into his hands.

“Thank you.”

“It’s the least we can do, sweetie. I don’t know if Virgil’s told you, but he has siblings about your age. 22 and 20 now, bless them.”

“Speaking of our other children, Tati, we do need to get home to them soon,” Celeste said regretfully.

“I-” Patton started, then hesitated.

“Hm?”

“How do I do this?” Patton whispered. “How do I just wait and watch and worry and not explode?”

Tatiana and Celeste both reached out at the same moment, their hands joining like puzzle pieces. Tati looked down, thinking, then met Patton’s gaze. “I won’t tell you it’s easy, because it’s not. Nothing about it is easy. It’s draining, emotionally and physically. But you keep going, you power through, because you love him. Because you want to be there the minute something changes. Because there’s a slight, slight chance that he can hear you and you want him to know that he’s never alone.”

“Be kind to yourself, dear,” Celeste added. “Remember to eat. Let yourself rest. Let yourself feel. And don’t be afraid to ask for help.”

Patton nodded in wordless thanks, unable to speak. The women stood and hugged both Virgil and Logan thoroughly before departing with a last wave.

~~~~~~

In the silence that followed, Virgil sat in one of the other chairs, near to Patton without crowding, and Logan sat down on his other side. All three supers paused to watch Roman’s chest rise and fall in time with the sounds of the oxygen machine and the blips of the heart rate machine as accompaniment.

“You had family here in the hospital,” Patton said to Virgil after a pause. It wasn’t a question.

“Yes. My little sister. Sandry.”

“...can I ask?”

Logan grimaced and reached over for Virgil’s hand, giving a comforting squeeze. Virgil smiled weakly at him before responding. “I mean, yeah, at this point, you might as well know.” He took a deep breath. “It’s not pretty, though.”

Patton chuckled humorlessly. “What about any of this is?” He took Roman’s hand in his and settled in to listen.

Virgil’s gaze remained fixed on the speckled floor tiles as he spoke.

“We knew I had powers early. Flight and strength are both pretty flashy. But they weren’t disruptive or anything. And Mum and Mama didn’t want to take me out of school, so I just stayed in my public school out in the suburbs. They hadn’t heard of any alternatives. And for the most part it was… normal, I guess. No one suspected that I hated gym because I’d be too good at it, they all just thought I was an awkward emo nightmare. Which, to be fair, was true. But in middle school, things started to change. I accidentally hovered sometimes, or sat too heavily and broke chairs, or slammed doors open and cracked the walls. People started making fun of me, thought I was just a terrible klutz. I wasn’t super confident to start with, between being mixed and caught between those two worlds and having two moms. When I first realized that people made it a thing that Mum is a trans woman, or that Jacques and Alex are enbys, I stopped talking about my family. But as my powers kept bursting out of me, I started trying to hide in plain sight all the time, tried to appear smaller, and I learned to be afraid. Afraid of what people would say and were saying. Afraid that they’d target my siblings or moms. Afraid that my next mistake would be super noticeable. Afraid that everyone would find out about my powers and I’d never be anything other than Virgil the Freak.

“It just got worse. The more I thought and worried about hiding my powers, the more they broke away with me. I was constantly on edge, hiding in my hoodie in the back of the classroom, hoping no one would look at me or notice me or even think about me. And then one day, when I was fifteen, I accidentally picked up an entire wall of lockers to get an assignment that had fallen under a crack. I thought no one saw me but… I was in my yard that night, scrolling on my phone, when I started getting text after text of these dumb memes and messages making fun of me. Then I got a call. Six of my classmates, all on speaker, all together at someone’s house, laughing at me. I hung up on them, but I’d already started crying. It felt like all my fears were coming true, and I was panicking. I couldn’t breathe or think straight, and the world felt like it was moving way too fast and also frozen at the same time. Sandry heard and came out to comfort me, to try to talk me down, literally, because I’d started hovering again, all curled up in a tiny ball.”

Virgil paused, taking in a deep, shuddering breath. Logan squeezed his hand and started rubbing his back in small, comforting circles. Patton watched solemnly, not interrupting.

“All I can say is I didn’t realize it was her,” he continued, his voice hollow. “All I could hear was their laughter, all I could see was the taunts I’d been receiving, and when she touched my arm… I exploded. I screamed at her to get away, and it triggered the power I didn’t yet know about. I blasted her into the big old oak tree in our yard and she hit it full force, frozen in the middle of reaching out for me. The crack as she connected…” he shuddered. “I’ll never forget it. It’s the worst sound I’ll ever hear. But it was enough to break through, for me to come back to myself, to see what I’d done. I started sobbing and yelling for Mum and Mama and Jacques and Liv and Alex and they all came running out. They were horrified, and terrified. Of me.

“We broke every single speed limit on the way to the hospital - to here. I was almost fully mute with shock but we were able to tell them it had been a super accident. Sandry was bruised all over and non-responsive. We didn’t know for a full day if she was still frozen from my power or the injuries, but we found out she was in a fully comatose state. My little sister, Sandra Skylar, was eleven years old and in a coma, the doctors had no idea when or if she’d wake up, and I’d put her there. It was my fault. And if she died, brain-dead, never waking again, that would have been my fault too,” Virgil finished, voice cracking.

Logan shifted to hug his boyfriend around the shoulders, shushing softly. “It’s okay, Virge. She recovered, and your family still loves you, and that’s when you got the help you needed.” Turning to Patton, he explained, “It lasted a week, and in that time, the hospital staff learned that Virgil wasn’t enrolled at HEARTS, the super school. His moms hadn’t heard of it, but the minute they did, they got him transferred, so he could get instruction on how to manage his powers and get support for the ups and downs of using them. And that’s where we met. It’s where he became a hero.”

Virgil leaned into Logan for a moment and brushed away his tears. “Only half-right, Lo. That was where we met, but here is where I became a hero. Or resolved to be one.” He gazed over at Roman’s still form. “Spending days and nights on end, seeing her in that bed, hoping desperately that she would be okay… I promised anyone who was listening that if she survived, I’d never let it happen again. That I’d learn control, and that I’d keep her and everyone like her safe. I wish I could say it was because it was the right thing to do, but so much of it was just knowing what that pain felt like, knowing what I’d done.”

“Wait, really?” Patton asked. “Heroes are allowed to be doing it for something other than Truth, Justice, and the American WayTM?”

Logan was frowning. “Well, not ideally, but-”

“We all want to, but most of us don’t,” Virgil interrupted. “Or maybe we did when we were young and now it’s just a job, a specialized skill we have. Not all of us can be as pure as the Doc over here.”

Patton hesitated, then reached out and took Virgil’s hand. “Thank you for trusting me with your story.”

Virgil shot him a small smile. “Thanks for listening.”

“But, Virgil?”

“Yeah?”

“Next time you use that force wave power, it better be against the bastard who put Ro here.”

“You’ve got yourself a fucking deal.”

~~~~~~

a/n: Backstory! Moms! Momming!