Villains Wear Masks

“I never look back, Darling. It distracts from the now.”

~ Edna Mode

April awoke to a loud roar reaching her ears. It appeared to sound like a very sizeable crowd screaming and yelling. If she could discern them right, there even seemed to be cheers in the mix. When the sense of her wrists aching reached her brain, April opened her eyes to exactly what she expected.

She was tied by her wrists with itchy rope to some sort of contraption, no doubt intended to cause harm to either her or the city. She was in the middle of downtown, right across the street from City Hall and the Super Museum. Why so many villains chose to enact their plots in this place and places like it was a mystery to most people, but Anakin had once confided in April that it was to draw the biggest crowd and get on the news. Supers would be nothing without their constant drive for publicity.

The ropes tied around her wrists were already rubbing her skin raw and she was almost certain one of her shoulders had become dislocated. Old wounds from the past opening up again.

When she went to Alcatraz, April convinced herself she was far away from her old life. She told herself she would be starting something new, never to go home again just to be the same pawn in a cat and mouse game between two products of their environments. Now that she was being displayed like a trophy above Kingdom City, April realized she had been silly to even try and convince herself it had been over. It was never going to be over. Until one defeated the other, April would be their favorite toy to fight over. She would always be a damsel with them around.

“Ladies and gentlemen of this fair city, don’t I have quite a show for you tonight!”

April unwillingly glanced to her left, where Black Knight was floating and addressing the concerned citizens below. Though most knew, like her, that there was nothing to fear. There was never anything to fear. April was always saved by White Knight. A boy with a white knight complex who needed to be her everlasting knight in shining armor to have purpose in his life.

Well, she was frankly quite tired of waiting for him to save her from mortal peril. Of course she knew he would fight for her with his dying breath, but what was the point of just hanging around while she waited? Wasn’t she capable herself of escaping if she really put her mind to it?

While Black Knight rambled to the crowd about his latest death trap that would most definitely not be destroyed by his arch nemesis, April reached for the rope above her hands and pulled. It was the same move she had made the week before she left for San Francisco, the time she thought would be her last kidnapping. In no time she had a bobby pin in hand and was maneuvering it into the rope. The knot was more complicated than the last time and she had been out of practice for three months. It would take quite a bit longer than she wanted to escape.

“Not so fast, Black Knight. Did you think I would let you threaten the dear citizens of my city and get away with it?”

Great, now she had to work while distracted by their super nemesis banter and the eventual battle for her possession.

Surprisingly, the ropes loosened and April fell to the platform a foot or so below her feet. She must’ve got lucky and hit the right point to detangle the ropes.

“No, but this time I have a very special lady, one who you will have to save first before stopping my machine.”

It was like a spotlight suddenly hit her. The crowd that had been occupied watching the Knights like their favorite television show was now focused on April Watson, who everyone was sure was tied to a crane only seconds before. No one moved, perplexed by the odd situation.

“Um,” April spoke, feeling weird now that everyone was staring at her. It was like they had expected her to just hang there like dead meat until her Prince Charming came to brush her off her feet. “Now White Knight can save you all without worrying about me I guess.”

Both White Knight and Black Knight blinked a couple of times as April rubbed her aching wrists. One thing they hadn’t expected during their first battle over April was for her to break script and somehow escape.

The crane that had been holding her over the platform seemed to be close to hovering over a dark pool of water behind her. April suspected that when Black Knight was finished with his monologue he was going to move her over the pool instead. If she stared close enough she spotted red flashing lights near the eyes of dark shadowy creatures. April hoped Anakin hadn’t taken her advice to add the lasers to the sharks’ eyes.

Black Knight recovered first from the shock and swooped down to grab April. This time she was ready, swinging a right hook at the villain right as he came up to her. April, who had never once retaliated against him before, was able to land the punch pretty solidly on his nose, a satisfying crunching noise following suit.

“Ouch! That hurt!” Anakin complained, sounded less like a super villain and more like an annoyed brother. “Why’d you hit me?”

April’s hand was actually starting to sting where she hit him. No number of amateur practices in the family weight room would have been enough to prepare her to hit actual bone.

White Knight floated down in high but confused spirits, cautiously approaching Black Knight. “Well, I guess it’s time to get arrested, Black Knight.”

But instead of letting himself be handcuffed, the villain reached over to his machine and pressed the big red button. If pop culture had taught her anything, you never touched the big red button. A purple smoke started to emit from the machine, rolling over the crowd. Everyone who inhaled it crumbled to the ground, deep in sleep. Taking a cue, April put her sleeve to her mouth to keep out the smoke.

White Knight and Black Knight started battling above her and above the smoke level, seemingly fighting over the big red button one had ripped off the side of the machine. Since it showed no sign of stopping, April assumed the off button was not the same as the on button.

While the crowd slept on, April went to find out how to turn off the machine. After a while she just started pulling out wires and pressing buttons. None of Anakin’s machines were ever wired to explode, so she thought disabling the machine was the next best bet. Soon enough the smoke stopped coming out of the machine and sputtered out.

A rattling crash interrupted April’s celebration at successfully turning off the machine. White Knight had thrown Black Knight into a nearby building, rubble and glass falling down to the street below, where the barely waking up citizens had collapsed. Up on her platform, April could do nothing as they ran to dodge the building’s crumbling exterior.

April could already see the biased headlines in the morning, “Villain destroys downtown and injures many citizens,” or, “Hero bravely saves his long missing damsel.” None of the papers were going to talk about how it was White Knight who threw Black Knight in the building, causing the chaos. None of the papers were going to publish how April got herself out of the ropes and stopped the machine without a hero’s help. She thought she knew before just how insanely biased the world was to their precious heroes, but she hadn’t really realized until now. Heroes couldn’t be blamed for anything but greatness, and villains were always the scapegoat. No matter if they had changed, the villains would always be the culprit.

White Knight finally realized the danger he had put his citizens through and went to stop some debris, but most of the damage had already been done. April heard police sirens in the distance and knew they’d at least get help from someone.

But, come to think of it, none of those citizens would have been hurt had they not been eager to witness the antics of a super villain and watch a superhero save the girl. If they hadn’t supported the system, they would never have been in danger.

April suddenly didn’t care anymore if the sirens came to save them. They got themselves in this mess.

With the sirens came White Knight’s massive ego. He wanted to tell just about everyone, reporters and police alike, how he saved the day. It used to be annoying and a bit adorable to April, but now she realized how overzealous it was. It really revealed how much of a megalomaniac her knight was.

By the time she got home it was late and April was tired. No, she didn’t want to party in the kitchen now that she was safe. No, she didn’t want to theorize with Brandon how Anakin had gotten away. No, she didn’t want to sit and watch the replay of the incident on the news. All April wanted was a hot chocolate and her childhood bedroom.

April was ready to turn in early shortly after she got home, but everyone else in the house just wanted to party. She went down the stairs with the intention of telling her family to be quiet for once and let her sleep when she heard something pretty interesting and paused to listen for more.

“. . . she’s still acting weird. You said this fight would remind her of the old times, convince her to stay. I mean, how’d April even learn how to get out of those knots? The old her would’ve waited for me to fix the situation and make sure the machine was disabled. But now? She was running around trying to do it all herself. It’s like she forgot while she was away what happened the last time she tried to save herself. Without me there to save her after she got out of that rope contraption, she would’ve been eaten by sharks! She doesn’t appreciate what I do for her anymore!”

“It’s that blasted prison that’s done it to her!” Captain Fantastic yelled in outrage. “That villain X is twisting her mind.”

“I think it goes deeper than we think,” a voice, her sister’s, said. Though Diana was supposed to be upstairs in her room recovering, not in the living room talking about April. “She told me earlier that she met someone in the city, someone she may even love.”

There was the immediate response she expected from her family. Her mother and Brandon gasped while her father used his ‘superhero’ voice, “she is not going to be with some random bimbo a thousand miles away that I’ve never met before. What’s wrong with Brandon over here, eh? I thought they were a thing.”

April could almost envision Brandon’s self-assured smirk and her sister’s sheepish smile.

“Well, I think she isn’t just talking about anybody. Look, she spends most of her time there interviewing one prisoner at Alcatraz with practically no free time. He’s the only one she’s spent considerable time with since she got there.”

“You think April is in love with X?”

Brandon was the last one she expected to ask that question.

“Maybe he’s manipulating her in some way.” Diana offered. “All we know is that it is definitely a possibility. It could be why she’s acting weird and not wanting to stay. I told you guys I wouldn’t be able to keep her long anyways, and that was without her under a super villain’s control.”

She wouldn’t be able to keep April here? Did that mean . . .

Her mother huffed. “What if you just acted sicker? April would have to stay if she thought you needed her. Wouldn’t you do anything you had to so this family can stay together happily? To keep your sister safe from dangerous villains? We all know she can’t protect herself like we can.”

There was a silence for a while. And then, “Well, we can’t let her go back if X has actually gotten in to her head. We have to call up Agent Argent and tell her to keep X in solitary and keep our daughter away from him. We may need another distraction to make sure she doesn’t know what we’re doing. If X has her under his control, she may not know what she wants to do is wrong. Could we stage another super villain kidnapping?”

“I don’t think it would be wise in the public eyes if we let April get kidnapped twice in one night,” Brandon said, giving wisdom April didn’t think he was capable of, “but maybe tomorrow morning we could tip off a smaller villain of where she’ll be.”

“Okay, this may work. Anything to keep her safe.”

“I’d rather you talk about me when I’m here to listen.”

The whole room went silent. Diana was sitting in her chair with her legs pulled up in her lap, like she used to do when she lived at home. Brandon was sitting ever elegantly as he’d always been, or at least he had been before April walked in, making him bounce into a straighter position in his chair. Her parents were sitting in the corner, her dad giving an air of being the most important person in the room. Former superheroes had that aura around them.

“April,” Diana defended, “it’s not what it-”

“Oh, shut up. I’m not an idiot, Diana. I may not be a super, but I have ears and a brain that work just as fine as all of yours.”

Out of all of them, Diana looked the most embarrassed and guilt ridden. She seemed to want to defend herself again, but her phone buzzed and saved her. But whatever was on the screen of her phone only succeeded in making her blanche even further.

“What is it?” April demanded, wanting to know everything now that she knew how much her family kept from her because of what they thought was right for her.

Diana hesitated for just a moment too long.

“What’s happened to him?”

“There’s been a prison riot.” Diana looked up, face still pale, but not sporting any surprise, “X was injured.”

April looked around at the people she had called family since she was a little kid. Only her little brother would’ve completed the circle, but he was still an innocent one in all of this. He hadn’t yet been exposed to the kind of people the rest of the family really was. Because they weren’t heroes in any sense of the word. They were villains.

“I’m going.”

Immediately her father and Brandon got up to stop her. “No.”

April tried to make herself stand taller, though she was nowhere near both men’s heights. “You’re going to try and stop me? I would have thought you guys might have started to be feeling at least the tiniest bit guilty about your actions, but none of you have done anything to prove me right. You’re just as evil as you think he is.”

That was the ultimate insult to a hero. Heroes were the epitome of goodness and everything right in society, never bowing down to the same level as the villains.

Or maybe it was just elementary to believe heroes were different from the people they swore to defeat. The two sides did the same things, just with different intentions attached to them. Lying in the name of good is still lying.

“April Lana Watson! I forbid you to take a single step outside of this house!”

But April Lana Watson had been having enough of her parent’s hypocrisy. “Don’t you dare try and lecture me about what I should and shouldn’t do!” April had never raised her voice in such a fashion to her parents, so the shock got them to shut up and listen to their daughter’s cries. “Take a step back and realize what you’ve done! You made me think my sister was badly injured just to get me to come home to a family that doesn’t understand me, you were trying to plan another kidnapping of your own daughter just so I wouldn’t try and leave, and you orchestrated the situation I just got out of to try and remake me into the helpless damsel I used to be. Do you guys not get how messed up that is? Most parents don’t want their daughters to be helpless and dependent on one man she doesn’t even love for the rest of her life. Most parents wouldn’t want their daughter to be kidnapped by a super villain. Most sane parents would do what was best for me, not try and shape me into some TV trope that fits into their narrative of how the world works.

“Maybe the reason I want to go to X is because he’s the only person in my life who has never lied to me. At least with him I can trust that he doesn’t have alternate motives to try and force me to be something I’m not. He may have been a villain in the past, but you all are villains now. He acted out in the daylight, in front of the whole world, while the real heinous wrongdoers like you do their deeds in the dark so that the world can’t see your true motives. Hiding it just makes you seem guiltier, no matter if you’re labeled a hero or villain. I’m going back to San Francisco and to Alcatraz and I’m not ever coming back to this house of lies.”

She ran out before anyone could stop her. All she knew was that she had to keep running. If she stopped, she would have to let the tears fall and the memories flow back over her. No one wanted to find out that their parents only wanted to exploit them.

Without a thought, April’s phone was at her ear.

“This is Argent.”

April stopped running and glanced back at her old street one last time before looking out at the bus stop. “I need to make it back to Alcatraz as soon as possible. Seeing X after the riot could be the breakthrough I need for my case study.”

“Of course, I’ll have a plane waiting for you at the airport.”

“Thank you, Agent Argent.”

She was going back to where she belonged.