Chapter Text
“Robert! We’re going to be late! Get your ass down here!” his father’s voice thunders down the hallway, heavy footsteps barreling down the staircase.
Even behind his closed door at the end of the hall, Robert can trace his father’s steps from his opposing bedroom, down the stairs, to the front door to grab his coat. It’s the only path the man takes in this house. If he were here often enough, his weighty footfalls would’ve carved a path into the hardwood. Now, those feet only begin to scuff the dust that accumulates in this frequently empty home.
Robert stands in front of the mirror seated above his dresser, little hands fumbling on his tie. His father had never shown him how to knot it. It had been a birthday present, a few years ago – a gift from a man who truly knew nothing of his only child. Robert had smiled when he opened it and thanked his father anyway, despite the fact his birthday had actually been the week before.
Robbie Robertson never remembered a single important date, never appeared for the holidays or birthdays or school events or anything that mattered to Robert at all. But like clockwork, his father would haunt this home on the first Sunday of every month, brushing the dust from his suit and urging his son to wake at the crack of dawn for church.
He can’t get the tie right. His little nine-year-old hands don’t have the motor skill to maintain the proper tie length and slot the silken fabric through the necessary loops. He can’t quite remember the steps, shown to him by Track Star several months ago after the last time he was punished for making Robbie late for church.
Robert can hear those footsteps again, tracing back their path from the foyer, up the stairs, down the hallway, approaching his bedroom with frustrated ferocity. The tie is wrong again.
“Robert! We’re going to be late! What’s the holdup?” his father demands, slamming the door open with alarming force. Robert feels frozen, clutching at the ends of his little striped tie in tiny fists.
“This again? Honestly, Robert, you’re too old for this,” Robbie scoffs, yanking the tie off and hurriedly wrapping it around his own neck to tie it. He’s starting to turn red in his anger, so easily upset by the most minute mistakes. They probably won’t even be late. They always end up in the church at least thirty minutes early.
Robbie makes a mistake in his anger. One end of the tie is shorter than the other, lopsided and silly on the man’s larger body. He growls in frustration, throwing it on the bed and shaking his head.
“Forget it! Let’s just go.” His father’s hand grabs his wrist, dragging him back down the hallway, down the stairs, through the foyer, and to the car. The whole way, the man is grumbling, a constant stream of complaints.
“I only ask for one day a month, Robert. Just one day a month where nothing goes wrong. Do you not want to go to church, is that it?”
“No! No, I like going to church!” Robert replies frantically as he clambers into the passenger seat of the car, barely able to buckle before Robbie squeals out of the driveway.
It’s not a lie, despite what his father believes. Robert waits desperately for these Sundays, overjoyed at the thought of being out of the house. The church is a sacred place, a tiny piece of freedom in between weeks of being cooped up at home. The vaulted apses echoing the words of the priests, the stained glass windows casting rainbow light across the floors, the secretive alcoves where he snuck away while his father mingled with the congregants – it was all magical. He spent every night dreaming about his escape to the church.
“Then why do you do this every month, Robert? Are you trying to punish me for being away?” His father slams a hand against the steering wheel, eyes hardly on the road as he yells at him. It was like this every Sunday they went to church, without fail. And yet, Robert would suffer through it every single day, just to get in that building.
The ride is blissfully short, Robbie Robertson ranting and raving the whole drive there. Robert just cowers in his seat, making himself small. He will endure this, for the freedom of the church, of hearing new ideas, of witnessing hope in the eyes of the priest at the altar. He will drink the wine, and eat the crackers, and stand, and kneel, and sing, and pray, and it will be the most fulfilling three hours of his entire month. He will spend the next four weeks counting down the hours until he can go back.
This routine continues for the next several years. Few things in life are guaranteed, but alongside death and taxes, Robert’s father will be in that church on the first Sunday of the month. On days where he’s forced to miss it because of Mecha Man business, the next month he runs that Sunday morning like a military general. One month when he’s a teenager, Robert oversleeps after staying up too late playing video games, and his father nearly takes a swing at him when they show up five minutes late for the service.
It’s the end of a brisk October, a few months before Robert’s eighteenth birthday, when Track Star appears in his living room. He looks uncharacteristically somber, tapping his foot anxiously as Robert descends the stairs. Robert wasn’t expecting his de facto babysitter today. His dad was supposed to be back from his mission by now.
Track Star breaks the news as delicately as he can. Robert barely takes it in, stops listening after the first “I’m so sorry, but your dad is dead.” It’s simultaneously liberating and terrifying. It’s a wave of information rushing over him, paperwork about insurance payouts and media disclosures and funeral preparations. The Brave Brigade is thankfully dealing with setting up the funeral, seeing as Robert is still a minor.
It’s going to be a few days from now, at the church they always go to. It’s not until he sees the date written out that he starts to laugh. It’s the first Sunday of the month. Even in death, Robbie Robertson wouldn’t miss church. It’s one of those funny anecdotes that someone would tell in a eulogy, maybe something Robert would say if he felt like espousing false positive memories of his father. Instead, he just sits here in his living room with the last bit of family he has left, laughing hysterically, until the laughter turns to tears.
Robert isn’t sure why these are the memories that greet him as he awakes from his coma. It’s not unusual for him to think about his father, largely stuck on his death and the manner in which it occurred. The church memories are excavated from some deep recess of his mind, though, maybe yanked to the surface by the several months he has spent in a medically-induced slumber.
He can’t remember any specific instances of what happened in the church, only what happened before. It’s like his brain has kept the happy memories tucked away, protecting them from the abuse that preceded each moment of escape.
As Robert blinks months of sleep from his eyes, the blinding hospital lights almost make him feel as if he’s ascending to heaven once and for all. There’s a constant murmur of machines humming and nurses shuffling around the room, but beneath it all, he swears he can hear a prayer.
Lord, you are the Great Physician, and I believe in Your ability to restore health and bring comfort in times of distress.
His mouth is tacky with disuse, every sense slowly reloading like an ancient, rebooting computer. He’s trying to push himself up to a sitting position, but his arms feel useless and immobile, incapable of withstanding any amount of weight. Nurses' hands are urging him to relax back onto the bed, but he feels like a newly born wild animal – ready to scramble up and take shaky steps, desperate to become self-sufficient as quickly as possible. They’re trying to tell him something, trying to ask him to lay down or take a sip of water, but he’s too focused on that damn prayer.
Father, I surrender my pain, my worries, and my fears into Your hands.
He manages to struggle into a sitting position, despite how it feels like he’s wrestling against his own physical form. He feels so weak. How long has he been here? His mind fills with his last memories – fighting Shroud, flying off, the rapid beeping of the Mecha Man suit alerting him of a device strapped to his back. The horrific klaxon of the alarm as he began to crash, the way the suit crumpled inward like a tin can, burning oil sizzling against his skin as he spiraled towards the earth.
He has to get out of here. Suddenly, there are too many people in this room. There’s too many faces, all watching him like some sort of curiosity. They’re all grabbing for him, trying to touch him, trying to hold him down. He needs to go, to get away from that fucking prayer.
I ask that You touch this man with Your healing hand, renew his strength, and fill him with the peace that surpasses all understanding. Help him to trust in Your plan for his life, knowing that Your plan is to prosper him and give him hope and a future.
He manages to scoot towards the edge of the hospital bed, swinging his legs over the edge to attempt to stand.
Well, legs is the word for what was once there. Now, it’s just leg, singular. He blinks once, twice, three times, trying to connect what his eyes are perceiving with the physical sensation.
Where there had once been two healthy, strong, muscular legs, there was now one skinny, atrophied leg, and one stump. Starting at mid-thigh, there is just… nothing. It’s bandaged, of course, but it doesn’t make up for the empty air where there was once a limb. He feels sick. He needs to escape from his own body, but he couldn’t run away even if he wanted to.
He slides back into the bed, pulling the sheets over himself like it might hide the damage. Maybe it’s like a bad magic trick, and when he pulls the sheet away again, the leg will reappear. But as the sheet settles over his bottom half, he watches how it curves around one appendage, and sinks in the absence of another. He squeezes his eyes shut, falling back against the bed like he can go back into the coma if he tries hard enough.
May Your presence be felt in every moment, and may Your peace guard our hearts as we wait for Your miraculous touch.
“Mr. Robertson, we’re going to give you some medicine to help you calm down. I understand this is very overwhelming, just try to take some deep breaths,” a calming voice directs him, but he can’t really take in what it says. His own thoughts are battling against the barrage of external stimulations.
Burning, crashing, crushing, falling, beeping, screaming. The memories overlap and bombard him, haunting him with his eyes closed. Yet if he opens them, he’s forced to contend with the horrific fate of his missing leg. He desperately wishes he was back in his coma.
A warm hand grasps onto his, letting itself be squeezed in an iron grip. Or, at least what once would have been an iron grip. Robert’s muscles seemed to have deteriorated significantly in his coma. He lets his eyes open to see an older man, not dressed in scrubs, but rather in a priest’s regaliment. He has a kind smile, and warm eyes behind a pair of wire-rimmed glasses.
“We give You all the praise and glory, trusting in Your unfailing love and mercy. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen,” the man finishes his prayer, using his free hand to draw the sign of the cross over his own chest.
Against his will, Robert feels his body relax. He’s taken back to those warm memories in the church, the freedom of being in the stained glass cathedrals. Maybe it’s no coincidence that he awoke thinking of those memories. Maybe this is a sign.
Over the next few weeks in this hospital room, Robert comes to realize a few essential truths.
First, he can no longer be Mecha Man. His suit is, for all intents and purposes, trashed, according to the police officer that comes to speak to him. They recovered the major chunk of the body, but there are many pieces that have been lost, broken beyond repair, or burnt to crisps. Notably, the Astral Pulse has not been recovered, which is sort of the main component to the suit even if he wanted to get back in the field.
However, that’s certainly not happening at any point in the near future either, seeing as he is now disabled. Saying it still feels like a strange weight in his mouth, admitting that he is now an amputee. When he’s calmed down enough, a doctor explains to him that when he was rescued, his leg was basically gone. What remained was a loose connection of tissue that couldn’t have been salvaged, even if it wasn’t burned by flaming jet fuel. They had amputated his left leg just above the knee, leaving him with a very tender stump of a thigh.
The coma had saved Robert from the most difficult stage of his recovery. Nurses kept his wounds clean, checked on the leg, made sure everything stayed running the way it was intended. By the time he had awoken several months after the crash, all that remained of his amputation was the scarring of a skin graft, capping off his thigh.
Now that he was awake, the hospital could inundate him with literature, all with titles far too enthusiastically educating him on “What will change in your life as an amputee?” He’s told that he will likely need arm crutches, or a wheelchair, or a prosthetic leg, or likely all three. Many people find the freedom of a prosthetic or crutches to help them maintain a sense of normalcy, but a wheelchair is helpful on days where fatigue can set in, according to the pamphlets.
He sees a specialist who measures him for a prosthetic, and he begins to practice hoisting himself into the flimsy hospital wheelchair. His arms are nearly too weak to do even this, and far too weak for crutches at this point, so this is his fate until he can start seeing a physical therapist. At some point during his stay, a nurse presents him with an itemized copy of his bill thus far.
Reading the seven-figure digit reminds him that secondly, he is broke. Recovery does not come cheap. Months of hospital stays, medicine, surgery, and now prosthetics and disability aids had all piled up, leaving him with a hefty bill.
Robert doesn’t have the kind of money to pay this back. He didn’t have the money to pay for anything even before the crash. He lived on credit and dwindling life insurance payments from his father’s death. Every once in a while he would make a public appearance and cash in a check from whatever organization felt generous enough to bankroll him. His entire livelihood was spent keeping that suit running, and now it’s nothing. A heap of useless metal.
Which reminds him that, finally, he has no real prospects in life.
Robert has been Mecha Man since the day his father died. It was presumed by everyone that he would take up the mantle of being Mecha Man, because it’s what Robertson men did. His whole life has been a series of assumptions about what comes next. He got in the suit because he was supposed to, saved citizens because that’s what heroes did, tried to kill Shroud because it was the right thing to do.
Now, the presuppositions have fallen away. He is just Robert. He has a shitty apartment, no job, no money, no friends, no family, and one less leg than he did a few months ago. He is facing an ocean of endless choices, what should be the beginning of a new life, but it doesn’t feel freeing. He sits on an empty island in the middle of this ocean, deserted with no compass and no map.
This is what he confides to the only person who will listen to him at this point in his life – the bespectacled hospital priest who is literally forced to listen to his ramblings. His name is Father John, and he makes the rounds in this building once a day. The first time Robert actually sees him, he’s more surprised that the priest wasn’t a weird hallucination he had after awakening from his coma.
The conversations aren’t particularly enlightening or helpful. Mostly, Robert just unloads these three truths of his life onto Father John, tumbling them round and round like a new option will appear if he keeps worrying away at these facts. Soon, he will be discharged from this hospital, and he will have to make some big choices. He will have to become a functional adult with a real job and responsibilities.
There aren’t many options for grown adults with no work history, a newfound disability, and mountains of debt. Most jobs aren’t forgiving of those kinds of things. Most, but not all. As Robert speaks to Father John, an ill-conceived and frankly stupid idea comes to his mind.
Robert spends a single afternoon in the hospital computer lab doing research before he commits to this idea. Loan forgiveness for the necessary schooling, medical debt forgiveness, insurance, housing, stability – it provides it all. It’s what he needs. He can still help people, just… not in the way he used to.
The next afternoon, when Father John walks into his hospital room, Robert can hardly keep his cool as he makes small talk. He’s being friendly, waiting for a casual opening in the conversation when he finally asks:
“So, Father, how exactly could I go about becoming a priest?”
“Bat boy! You’ve got a visitor!” the prison guard raps on the glass of his window, yelling to be heard through the thick metal of the door. Victor had heard him talking to the other guard about it in the break room down the hall, but he perks his ears up anyway, pretending like this is new information.
He doesn’t bother asking any more questions, because he’s already overheard the important bits of the conversation. His visitor is an attorney from the Superhero Dispatch Network, alongside famed hero Blonde Blazer. They wouldn’t tell the guard why they’re here, they just want to see Sonar.
Honestly, he couldn’t give a rat’s ass why they’re here or what they have to say. What matters is that for some brief period of time, he is being released from this cell. It’s starkly gray, the size of a parking space, and furnished only with his bed, a desk, a chair, and a toilet – all of which have been securely bolted into the concrete floor. There is no window. Maybe, if he’s nice, the guard will walk him on the path past the rec yard, and he can feel the sunshine on his face for a few extra seconds.
This is the life of an untamable supervillain. Vic had only been arrested on a few minor felonies, the kind of things that would get normal people tossed into gen pop for a few years before getting out on parole. Sonar was not a normal person, though. Hybrids, ones like him who can triple their size and snap handcuffs with a flick of their wrist, cannot be placed into gen pop.
Far, far below the main floors of the prison, Victor gets the luxury of being locked up in the aptly named VSHU - the Villain’s Secure Housing Unit, or solitary confinement. Rooms with thicker concrete than any civilian could imagine, sound dampening, made with inflammable and immutable materials that no villain could break through. This is where Sonar has spent the past two hundred and seventy three days.
“You know the drill, hands through the slot,” the guard drones, not even having to get through his sentence before Vic is shoving his clawed hands out through the gap in his thick metal door. Heavy, glowing braces are strapped around his wrists, too strong to burst through even if he wanted to try to transform. Ask him how he figured that out.
Today, Victor isn’t trying any funny business. He hasn’t had a visitor in over a month, and hasn't seen the sun in as long. He needs this, needs to be out of that eighty foot cube with only his thoughts and a pencil and paper to occupy himself. It takes all his effort not to foam at the mouth with excitement, so fucking thrilled at the idea of getting to stretch his legs and see different sights for a change.
He lets himself be led like a dog on a leash, paraded past the cell doors of the other villains trapped down in this wannabe-dungeon. They all press their faces to the small glass windows of their cells, looking like little kids at an aquarium as they watch Victor make his triumphant march to the staircase. Today, he is free. Tomorrow, or the day after, maybe it will be one of them, and he’ll be a snot-nosed window-licker in his own cell, wishing to be free again. But for now, Sonar is on top.
Victor had heard rumblings that SDN would be prowling around this week. He’d overheard the gossipy prison guards mentioning a meeting they had with the warden about SDN recruiting for something called the Phoenix Program. Apparently, it was meant to reform villains into functional heroes, in exchange for some measure of their freedom.
All week, Vic had laid on his shitty, lumpy prison mattress and prayed that they would take him into this program. He’s not even religious, but he has to think that if there’s something out there, it must’ve heard him. He’s going to get into this program, no matter what it takes, no matter what he has to give. He can’t stay here any longer, and certainly not for another year and three months until his first parole hearing.
Thankfully, it’s one of the nice guards who guides him up to the visitation room. Victor doesn’t even have to ask, and the guard leads him on the extended path around the cafeteria and past the yard. He isn’t yelled at when he slows his gait just a bit, watching the way all the normal criminals lift weights and play basketball and do pull-ups outside. He’d give anything to have an ounce of that autonomy right now.
Finally, they arrive at the visitation room, but not his normal one. When he meets with his attorney, Vic sits behind several layers of plexiglass and talks to the man through an old-fashioned telephone. This is the visitation room for people without powers, whose only concern is whether their loved one might try to sneak a little baggie of cocaine beneath the table.
He enters hesitantly, glancing back and forth between the guard, and the two women seated at the table. The guard just nods at Blonde Blazer, stepping out of the room.
“They figured I could handle myself in case anything happened,” the hero shrugs, smiling that dazzlingly white smile at him.
Sonar had seen Blonde Blazer before, her image plastered across buses and talk shows and billboards throughout the city, but she’s even more radiant up close. She really is that beautiful, in a strong and powerful way that would be intimidating if she wasn’t naturally gorgeous. He tries not to be starstruck by being this close to her, letting out a half-hearted snort at her attempt at a joke.
Blazer was clearly expecting some snarky response from him, but he’s trying too hard to be on his best behavior, so he stays quiet. Then they’re all silent, glancing between each other, waiting for someone to talk. The attorney is entirely stoic, sitting there with her stack of documents that Vic can’t quite read at this angle. Blazer takes it upon herself to break the silence.
“So, Sonar, I’m here today on behalf of the Superhero Dispatch Network,” she begins, interlacing her fingers together as she speaks. She is somehow the model of business professionalism, despite being in her full hero costume. “We believe that you would be an amazing asset to a new initiative we’re starting called the Phoenix Program. We work with incarcerated supervillains to reform them into heroes, with stable, full-time employment under SDN. Obviously, this also means that if you join, you would be eligible for parole immediately.”
“Immediately, meaning today?”
“Yes, as soon as you sign the paperwork you’re technically – ”
Victor holds his hand out to the attorney, who places a dense stack of paperwork and a pen into his hand.
“There are some conditions that you should be aware of before you sign – ”
“Tell me while I’m signing. I’m getting out of here today,” Vic laughs, begging to flip through the pages of the paperwork and sign everywhere he sees a dotted line. His lawyer would surely discourage signing any sort of contract without reading it thoroughly, but today Victor couldn’t give less of a fuck what those papers say as long as he gets out of this place.
Blazer seems mildly shocked by this development, watching with a furrowed brow, but then she starts to rattle off the rest of her speech.
“Okay… Well, for violent offenders we generally require weekly visits with a counselor and an assigned social worker, but you’re one of our only non-violent offenders, so we’ve reworked some of the requirements. We’re aware you have prior issues with substance abuse, so we’ll be requiring you attend a weekly meeting at Narcotics Anonymous for at least the first year of your employment.”
“Sounds like a plan. I’ve been clean for nine months anyway,” he hums as he continues to sign, not even bothering to glance up at Blazer. He knows this is likely shocking information, and it’s not like he’s exactly earned any congratulations over it. It wasn’t exactly a voluntary detox.
His first week in gen pop had been easy enough – there were plenty of people who were willing to sneak him a baggie of coke for the right price, and his commissary account was loaded up with the legal money he had managed to protect when he went to prison.
Once he had been placed in the VSHU, though, that access had been completely cut off. No guards were willing to risk passing him any contraband, and he had no access to manipulate any other prisoners, so he was off drugs, cold turkey. And god, did it fucking suck. He spent the first week in a shivering ball on the concrete floor, barely able to choke down any food that he didn’t immediately vomit up again. His fur was matted down with sweat, his orange jumpsuit clinging to his damp skin. It was torture.
When the fog passed, he was clean – but at what cost? At least the days of recovery had made the time pass faster, giving him something to deal with in this empty cell. He was left to sit there and just think about all the coke he wanted and desperately needed to snort, constantly jonesing for a substance he physically couldn’t get his hands on. This was the true, endless torture. So sure, he was clean, had been for a while, but he wasn’t really sober.
“Oh, congratulations! I’m sure NA will be really helpful to deal with the… mental components of your recovery, then,” Blazer replies, trying her best to return back to her script. She clearly wasn’t prepared for this new information nor his lackadaisical attitude, both of which seemed to be throwing her for a loop. “In place of more rigorous therapy, you’ll be required to attend a group counseling session once a week at the local church. We’ve heard great things from reformed villains who have completed the program. They said the environment was very welcoming!”
“Sounds great. Is that it?” Vic finishes signing the last page, sliding the packet back to the attorney to be reviewed.
“Um, you’ll meet with your parole officer once a month. The mandatory meetings last for one calendar year, and you’re technically bound by these terms until the conclusion of your prison sentence. So, three years and three months,” Blonde Blazer nods, turning towards the attorney, who mirrors her gesture. “It seems like we’re all set, then. Do we need to send someone to retrieve anything from your cell?”
“Not necessary, unless you’re planning on publishing the manifesto I wrote while I was trapped in there. No personal effects for villains, I’m afraid. We can just get what I came in with when I leave,” Victor stands, beaming from ear to ear. He can scarcely believe it, that in just a few minutes his feet will be on the ground outside of these prison walls. He will never descend those stairs again, back down to the fishtank of forgotten villains.
He’s walked to the front office with Blonde Blazer and the SDN attorney, and the guards finally unlock the bracer cuffs from his arms. The front desk officer disappears into the back room and returns with a plastic bucket, full of what legal items Victor had on him at the time of his arrest. His rumpled suit, complete with a tie, his shoes, his watch, his wallet, a few rolled up one dollar bills that had no cocaine residue on them, and his phone. He didn’t have the foresight to turn it off before he handed it over, so it’s long-since been dead.
They allow him to step into a bathroom to change back into his suit, which has horrendous creases covering it from being shoved in a plastic evidence bag nine months ago. It’s a little tight in the arms and shoulders, he realizes as he slips the jacket back on. Seems like all those hours of jail cell push-ups actually bulked him up a bit.
Victor looks at himself in the dirty mirror, a luxury he’s been deprived of these past few months. He does look physically bigger, certainly with some weight in the shoulders. Transformations caused a massive calorie burn on top of his drug usage, so he was very scrawny for most of his adult life. Now, with no drugs and no big bat form, he almost looks healthy. He can’t help but smile at this revelation.
Back outside, Blazer allows him to call an Uber from her phone – she reluctantly informs him that they have more recruitment today, otherwise she would gladly give him a ride home. His apartment was paid off, so it should still be as he left it, if not a bit dustier. This is the first day of his new life.
Sonar stands beneath the sun, open road in all directions in front of him. There are no walls, no more eighty cubic foot box with no windows and a meal flap. He’s going to order takeout tonight, and watch television, and play on his phone, and stare out his penthouse window and watch the city and hear the sounds. He is a free man again, and he isn’t going to squander it.
The next week is not easy. Sonar is given a grace period from his obligations so he can get his shit together, but it doesn’t make it any less difficult. His apartment is a fucking disaster – it clearly was raided by the police after his arrest, meaning that all his drugs and any stashed weapons or cash have disappeared. Every door to every room and cabinet has been flung open, letting a thick layer of dust settle over everything.
His fridge is packed with months-old takeout boxes, everything in his pantry is expired, and the dishes left in his sink simply have to be thrown away entirely. He washes every item of clothing he owns in cycles, trying to rid them of the scent of disuse that clings onto them. He mops and wipes and scrubs everything, trying to make himself feel like a functional adult again.
He charges his phone, deleting the numbers for his dealers before he can second guess himself. After a moment of hesitation, Vic decides to hard reset the entire phone, deleting the meager contents of it. There isn’t much to miss. Any photos worth keeping have been printed and tucked away in the one box of personal belongings he’s toted with him from apartment to apartment, and there’s no phone number he really needs to keep.
Victor is starting fresh, getting his shit together, and it feels good. He gets measured for some new suits, accommodating for what little mass he’s gained. He takes care of his fur, relishing the feeling of using his fancy shampoo that he had been deprived of in prison. Looking at himself, he feels a sense of pride in how together he looks. No more scrawny, cokehead, douchebag Sonar. He’s a professional, with a real job, and he’s going to be a hero.
Unfortunately, step one on that journey was going to these stupid meetings. He’d been out for a few days when he got an email on his dazzling new SDN account that informed him of the dates and location of his reformed villain support group. It was at a local ministry named Covenant Restoration Church, led by a priest named Father Robert. It sounds like a bunch of bullshit to him, but they probably wouldn’t take too kindly to his opinions. Besides, he doesn’t have much of a choice anyway, if he’d like to stay out of prison.
So, he will go to his stupid meetings, be perfectly charming, and get this decrepit old priest to sign his log every week for a year. He will be so perfectly reformed that they’ll think Victor is the second coming of Jesus Christ himself. He doesn’t have to like these meetings, but they’re the reason he sleeps on a California king-sized bed rather than on a lumpy prison mattress.
The meeting isn’t until eight at night, so Vic spends the day cleaning and practicing his answers. Yes, he was an addict. He’s clean now, and it’s the best decision he’s ever made! It just gets easier every day! He’s filled with remorse over the crimes he’s committed, and he aspires to be the best version of himself he can be.
What of it is the truth and what is lies, he isn't sure. The same could be said for his entire backstory, this persona he has created around his identity. He can’t disentangle Victor from Sonar, the bat from the man, the villain from the hero, so they must become one. He must stay as one messy, tangled, disastrous hybrid, at least until he has the stability to take himself apart and build up these two pieces of himself into separate entities.
He takes a cab to the church, too nervous to transform again for the first time in several months. It’ll likely take a while for him to remember how to do it safely, and how to come down again without a panic attack. It’s best not to have these revelations in a church parking lot.
It’s a nice, quaint little place, clearly a historic relic of this neighborhood. Faint light inside glows through the stained glass windows, casting multi-colored patches across the cracked asphalt of the parking lot. Perched outside the open front door, a little signboard reads “Meeting downstairs! Welcome!” It’s sweet. Victor can almost picture some hunched over little priest writing the sign with his shaky hands, so overjoyed to be helping people. It almost makes him want to be genuine tonight.
He enters the warmly-lit little church, following hastily taped-up signs leading down to the basement. It occurs to him that he might be overdressed, in his new suit, and the other villains might read that as condescending. Oh well – it’s too late to change now. He’s just going to have to be the most stylish of the reformed villains at this meeting, and they’ll all have to deal with it.
As he arrives in front of the double doors leading to the meeting room, Vic can’t help but hesitate. It’s a terrifying first step, to enter this room and admit that he was a bad person, that he committed crimes. That if he hadn’t been caught, he would still be committing those crimes. Hell, he would probably still go do half of them for fun right now.
He turns back to the staircase, considering leaving and making up some excuse. They probably wouldn’t send him back to prison over one missed meeting, right? But he feels eyes on his back, drilling into him, already caught.
Vic turns and makes eye contact with a very stern painting of Jesus, locking eyes with him at the end of the hall. Fuck, now he really feels like he’s been caught. Even the son of God himself is judging him. He just has to do this.Victor moves back to the door and pushes it open before he has a chance to second-guess himself.
The room is already bustling with villains of all shapes and sizes – some sort of glowing void elemental, a man with icy white hair and a crystalline arm, an almost translucent ghost woman, and many more. They’re drinking shitty coffee and eating stale donuts while they wait for the meeting to start, mingling around the metal folding chairs arranged in a neat little circle.
They all turn to look at him as he enters, dozens of suspicious eyes taking in this overdressed new addition to their little club. For the first time since elementary school, Victor feels well and truly out of place. Even in a room full of similarly powerful villains with visible powers, he does not feel like he belongs. His ears feel too big, his clothes too clingy, his eyes too large. It conjures memories of the stares he got on his first day of kindergarten, introducing himself to the class. He wants to turn and run, abandon this whole stupid idea of becoming a hero, when a voice cuts through the silence.
“You must be Sonar. We’re so glad to have you join us. Right, everyone?”
The crowd of villains lets out a chorus of grumbles that sound vaguely optimistic, but Victor isn’t focusing on any of them. No, he’s staring right at the man who so obviously must be Father Robert. Except, he’s not a wrinkly, ancient, bespectacled old man in priest’s robes – he is unfortunately young, and very hot.
Father Robert has floppy auburn hair, a gentle smile, and a slight limp in his walk. The sleeves of his black button-down are rolled up, revealing forearms littered with mismatching scars and burns. He’s gorgeous, maybe even more so in his stupid little priest’s collar. God, Vic immediately wants him so bad.
“Don’t mind them. They hate everyone new, says it interrupts their ‘vibe’,” Robert says with a gentle smile, coming to a stop in front of Victor. He’s so much shorter, probably half a foot if he had to guess. He looks up at Vic with the softest brown eyes he’s ever seen, resting a hand against his bicep. “Go ahead and sit down wherever you want. We’re getting started any minute now.”
Victor can’t force any words to come out. He just grins like a moron and nods, taking a seat in the nearest chair before his knees give out under him. The priest is hot. The priest he will have to see once a week for the next fifty-two weeks is horrifically, stunningly attractive, and he is entirely unavailable, as ordained by God. Not even unavailable in that he has a partner – that’s never stopped Vic before – but he is literally religiously celibate. Fuck.
The other villains seem to get the message and find their seats, hesitantly taking the ones beside Victor when the rest of the chairs fill up. Everyone settles in, including Father Robert, who sits down directly opposite Victor. He clears his throat before smiling, looking around at all the stoic faces.
“Okay, let’s start then! Sorry to all the returning customers, but we have a new member, so I’m gonna give my whole spiel before we get into it. Some of you might bother to listen this time, because I know you didn’t before.”
The joke actually elicits a few snickers from the crowd as the priest speaks.
“I’m Father Robert, but I don’t take myself too seriously, so you can just call me Robert, or Father, or whatever you want. Yes, I was a hero before I was a priest, which means I’m uniquely qualified to talk about the kind of issues that you all face. No, I didn’t arrest any of you, I check the records before you join. And no, I won’t tell you who I was, and I won’t give you any hints.”
Victor looks around at the other villains, all of whom seem surprisingly engaged in Robert’s speech. They look at him with admiration, or some kind of fondness, at least enough to keep them quiet. He’s calm and normal, it seems, which has earned him some respect.
“I’m here because I love helping people. I was officially ordained just a few years ago, and I’ve worked at Covenant Restoration ever since. I think a lot of people find solace in religion, but I’m not here to convert you. I spent a large majority of my life without religion, and it didn’t make me any worse of a person. I’m here to help support you, in whatever way works best for you, and to help you get on the right path to helping people.”
Robert smiles lopsidedly, clapping his hands together decisively.
“There’s the spiel. Now we can get down to actual business. Does anyone want to share any big wins from this week?”
A few hands immediately shoot up, and Robert gestures at the partially-invisible ghost girl with her hand raised proudly in the air.
“Spectra, go ahead – and, before I forget, let’s try to introduce ourselves today, both for our new friends and those of us who may have forgotten names,” Robert chuckles, glancing over to make eye contact with Vic. And he fucking winks. Robert winks at him, playfully, but he swears he almost gets a boner. It has to be a sin to get a hardon in a church, right?
The ghost girl, Spectra, begins telling some story about how she saved a woman from a burning building this week. Respectfully, Victor couldn’t give less of a shit even if she saved Jesus Christ himself from his crucifixion. All he can think about is Robert, Robert, Robert. His animalistic instinct, repressed after so long alone in a cell, is snarling in the back of his mind.
God, when was the last time he even jerked off? He’d sort of lost his libido while under constant supervision in prison, and it just… hadn’t crossed his mind since he had been back. Funny how those things fall to the wayside when you’re trying to be productive. But now, it’s all building up inside of him with an intense ferocity, and he can’t stop eye-fucking this priest.
He barely listens to the other villains share their successes this week, too busy trying to will down the half-chub in his slacks. This is so stupid, getting hard over this stupidly charming and kind and gentle-eyed priest. He wants to see those eyes look up at him while Father Robert sucks his dick. God, he’s gonna jerk off so hard when he gets home.
“Sonar, do you want to share any successes this week?” Robert asks, directing those puppy dog eyes back to Victor. He almost jumps, feeling the man direct attention towards him while his thoughts are so vile.
“Oh, yeah! For sure!” Vic coughs, folding his hands together in his lap in case anyone happens to look at his crotch. He wouldn’t mind if Robert looked at his crotch, but that seems unlikely. “Um… it’s been a pretty big week for me. Got out of prison this week, so… big things are coming!”
Robert raises an eyebrow at this, but grins and brings his hands together in a joyful clap.
“That’s amazing, Sonar! This is a great first step to your journey. I know a lot of the people in this room remember how amazing it felt when they got out.”
God, he’s so genuine and sweet, it’s infuriating. All Victor can think about is kissing his stupid mouth, kissing that stupid smile right off his lips. This is the worst and best day of his life.
A few more people talk before Robert reigns the group back in, redirecting toward their main topic of the night.
“Alright, everyone, this has been really great so far. I’m now going to ask us to go a little deeper, to get a little uncomfortable,” the room groans, but Robert pushes on. “I know, it’s everyone’s least favorite part of the night, where I force you to be introspective. I asked you to think about this when we finished up last week and come to the meeting today with some ideas, and I would really appreciate it if everyone participated.”
Another series of moans and whines, but people are digging around in their bags, pulling out journals and notebooks. Vic feels remarkably empty-handed. He wasn’t aware he signed up for an intensive therapy club, but it seems like everyone respects the process enough that they’re actually participating.
“I asked you to think about what negative traits you think people see in you, and why you think they see them. And then, I wanted you to think of at least one positive thing about yourself that you wish people would know when they saw you,” Robert reminds them all as the other villains flip through journal pages. He’s looking particularly at Victor, who’s desperately trying to come up with some kind of insightful answer.
They begin to go in a circle, some people reading directly out of their journals, and some just riffing off the top of their heads. Victor isn’t really listening, too busy trying to think critically about himself. He doesn’t like it, thinking about the horrible things other people think about him. It makes him spiral immediately, and he’s down the rabbit hole of his negative thoughts when Robert brings him back out.
“Sonar, I know you didn’t have time to prepare, but do you have anything to share?” Robert asks, looking at him so softly that the bat doesn’t have it in him to pass. He has to share, even if it makes him have a full on freakout, because Robert asked him to. He doesn’t want to disappoint this man.
“Uh, sure. I kind of have an idea of what people think, I guess. People aren’t really shy about yelling things at me. Maybe they think because I’m a hybrid, I have an animal brain too, and I don’t understand them, but..,” he huffs out a sarcastic laugh, staring down at his hands. His claws had only just started to grow back after months of being filed down in prison. “They’re scared of me. They think I’m a monster, because, I mean, look at me. They think I’m a bloodsucker, that I’m going to rip them apart. Sometimes I fucking want to, when they look at me like that.”
He looks around at the group then, taking in the stoic faces, and realizes what he said.
“Sorry, that’s not – ”
“No, Sonar, it’s alright. We don’t judge people for their thoughts here. Keep going, please,” Robert encourages, nodding along supportively.
“Okay,” Vic croaks, his words getting caught in his throat. He clears it with a cough before he continues. “I don’t know what I want people to see when they look at me. I don’t know if I’ve ever thought a positive thing about myself in my entire life. I’ve just accepted that I’m this monster, and that’s all I’ll ever be. I guess I wish people would just think I’m normal. That’s it.”
He feels a sudden welling of tears in his eyes, unexpected and hot. Victor looks up, tilting his head back and trying to suck them back in. He wipes at the corners of his eyes with his thumb, desperate to hide the shameful crying before it gets too obvious. He shouldn’t have done this, it’s too much, too soon. He’s never cried in front of other people before, not since he was a child. He feels so small.
“Thank you for sharing, Sonar,” Robert finally states, his voice warm and soothing. He could get wrapped up in that voice, the gentle cadence and the supportive words. It’s nice, he realizes, to have someone in his corner. He’s not sure that’s ever been the case before, and now he’s latching onto the first unavailable man that’s been kind to him.
By the time they arc around the rest of the circle, the meeting is wrapped up. Everyone else is seemingly aware of this as they grab their bags and begin to pack away their journals. Victor has managed to contain his emotions, back to his neutral self. He hadn’t expected to get so involved on his first night here. It feels stupid now, that he nearly had a breakdown on his first day at reformed villain summer camp.
“Great meeting tonight, everyone! The prompt for next week is ‘what is something you need to let go of?’ I’ll see you then!” Robert smiles, saying goodnight to individuals as they begin to file out. He goes over to get a coffee, making conversation with the remaining villains who have stuck around to munch on the remaining snacks and drinks.
Victor considers hightailing it out the door, never to come back to this godforsaken place, but he is unfortunately reminded that he needs a signature on his meeting log. Said signature needs to be made by Robert, who is currently enraptured in conversation with some sort of swirling water creature. He slowly meanders over, lingering next to the donuts while he waits for Robert to wrap up his conversation. The elemental catches his eye, glancing between Vic’s face and the paper clutched in his hand, and catches the hint. It burbles a farewell and shuffles its way out the door, leaving him with Robert.
The priest turns around, catching sight of him and smiling.
“Sonar, what – ”
“Victor.”
“Excuse me?”
“Sorry,” he shakes his head, clutching even tighter to the paper in his hand. “My name. It’s Victor. You can call me Victor, if that’s allowed.”
“Victor,” Robert repeats, nodding. “I can do that. So, Victor, what can I do for you?”
“I need you to sign my log. Please. For SDN.” He hands over the slightly crumpled paper, alongside a pen, biting down on his lip. It feels so childish, like asking for a signature on a permission slip, but it’s necessary. And even if it’s silly, it gives him a few extra seconds to talk to Robert.
“Oh, right! I forgot about that. The Phoenix Program, it’s a new thing, so I’m not used to it,” the priest comments as he takes the paper, gently smoothing it out before signing his name in the box beside today’s date. He hands it back over, hesitating for just a moment before he asks, “So, how did you enjoy the meeting tonight?”
“It was… interesting,” Vic snorts, folding up the paper and tucking it back into his jacket pocket. “Not what I expected, I guess. I didn’t know priests were allowed to be cool.”
“I’m definitely not cool,” Robert laughs, crossing his arms over his chest. Victor can’t help but glance down at his scars, jagged and scattered across his pale skin. “I try to be realistic. I don’t think getting on a soapbox for two hours really helps anyone. I’m here to be of service to you, whatever that entails.”
Whatever that entails. Victor tries not to let his mind go down that filthy path, despite how his brain instantly fills with thoughts of kissing this pretty little priest senseless.
“I’m guessing that doesn’t entail letting me take you on a date,” Vic suggests, trying to play it cool as he leans against the snack table. It’s corny, yes, but that’s never stopped him from shooting his shot before.
Robert scoffs, rolling his eyes, but his cheeks still burn bright red. The blush makes Victor realize that he has faint freckles across the tops of his cheeks, so light you wouldn’t see them unless you were really looking. God, he is so angelic looking.
“I think you already know the answer to that question. Even if I wasn’t a priest, that’s a huge ethical violation,” he pokes a finger into Vic’s chest, trying his best to look stern. But still, Robert is smiling. He’s flattered. Victor hopes he can’t feel the way his heart is fluttering beneath his touch.
“Duly noted. Can’t blame a bat for trying,” he shrugs, unable to stop the grin pulling at his lips.
“Sure,” Robert snorts, wiping away invisible dust on his sleeve, just to have something to do with his hands.
It’s become incredibly quiet in this room, Victor realizes as he looks around. All the other participants had cleared out, leaving the two of them alone in the basement of this church. No one would see anything… but it can’t happen. Vic can’t fuck up someone else’s life for his own guilty pleasures.
“I should get going,” he declares, standing up fully. He tucks his hands into his pockets, trying to hide the way they clench into tight fists.
“I need to clean up,” Robert states at the same time, his face flushing again at their overlapping words.
“You have fun with that,” Vic nods, smiling. He steps away, walking towards the door before he has a chance to make an extremely bad decision.
“Goodnight, Father,” he calls back into the room, turning to study the expression on the priest’s face.
“Goodnight, Victor,” Robert replies, his voice a bit raspier than before. His face is unreadable, lips pressed in a firm line while his cheeks continue to radiate a pink blush.
Victor takes the stairs two at a time, humming to himself as he goes. He calls a cab and waits outside the church, smoking a cigarette just to occupy his hands and mouth while his mind wanders elsewhere. He has a terrible idea. If Robert has any morals, it won’t work. But imagine if it does work.
Vic wants that priest, wants him more than he’s wanted anything besides drugs in a very long time. He’s going to have him, no matter what it takes.